Eugene Robinson
"Of all the speakers who have visited our campus, I would rank Eugene Robinson at the very top of the list! He was insightful, eloquent and very personable." Universities & Colleges
Eugene Robinson is an award-winning journalist, a political analyst on MSNBC, and the author of three books. As a twice-weekly columnist for The Washington Post, he won the 2009 Pulitzer Prize in Commentary for his columns on the 2008 presidential race that resulted in the election of America’s first African-American president.
Robinson was born and raised in Orangeburg, SC. He remembers the culminating years of the Civil Rights Movement—the “Orangeburg Massacre,” a 1968 incident in which police fired on students protesting a segregated bowling alley and killed three unarmed young men, took place within sight of his house just a few hundred yards away. He was educated at Orangeburg High School, where he was one of a handful of black students on the previously all white campus; and the University of Michigan, where during his senior year he was the first black student to be named co-editor-in-chief of the award-winning student newspaper, The Michigan Daily.
He began his journalism career at the San Francisco Chronicle, where he was one of two reporters assigned to cover the trial of kidnapped newspaper heiress Patricia Hearst. He joined The Washington Post in 1980 as city hall reporter, covering the first term of Washington’s larger-than-life mayor, Marion Barry.
Robinson became an assistant city editor in 1981, and in 1984 was promoted to city editor, in charge of the paper’s coverage of the District of Columbia. During the 1987-88 academic year, on leave from The Post, Robinson was a Nieman Fellow in Journalism at Harvard University. On his return to the paper he was named The Post’s South America correspondent, based in Buenos Aires, Argentina, a post he held from 1988-1992. That assignment led him to write his first book, comparing racial issues in the United States and Brazil – Coal to Cream: A Black Man’s Journey Beyond Color to an Affirmation of Race, published in 1999. In February 1994, Robinson returned to Washington to become The Post’s foreign editor. That same year he was elected to the Council of Foreign Relations.
In January 1999, Robinson became an assistant managing editor of The Post in charge of the newspaper’s Style section, which covers arts and culture. In 2004, he published his second book, an examination of contemporary Cuba: Last Dance in Havana: The Final Days of Fidel and the Start of the New Cuban Revolution. His appointment as associate editor and columnist took place January 1, 2005. After two decades as a columnist, he left The Post in April 2025.
In 2010, Robinson was elected to a nine-year term as a member of the Pulitzer Prize Board (serving as chairman in 2017-18). Also in 2010, he published his third book, Disintegration, an examination of the increasing economic and cultural diversity of the African American community. He is a member of the National Association of Black Journalists and the NABJ Hall of Fame. His fourth book, “Freedom Lost, Freedom Won: A Personal American History,” is scheduled to be published by Simon & Schuster in May 2026.
Robinson was married for 45 years to the artist Avis Collins Robinson, who passed away in October 2023. They were blessed with two sons and two perfect grandchildren.
Eugene Robinson On A Closer Look At Putin’s Threat In Ukraine and Crimea
Eugene Robinson: Why Is GOP Outraged Now Over Steve King? | Morning Joe
Marist College Commencement 2017 – Pulitzer Prize-Winning Columnist Eugene Robin
Marist College Commencement 2017 – Pulitzer Prize-Winning Columnist Eugene Robin
Eugene Robinson is on the front lines of news coverage everyday. He is a twice-weekly, Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for The Washington Post who is syndicated in 145 newspapers across the nation and is a prominent commentator on MSNBC. With an innate ability to cut through the clutter and provide clarity on today’s events, Robinson’s insights are free of the usual inside-the-beltway jargon. While media outlets may be tempted to churn out news served on a platter by candidates and companies, Robinson takes a step back not only to look at the big picture, but to focus on deeds—not just words. Whether he’s assessing politicians, cliff-hanging events on Wall Street or handicapping elections, he reminds us that politics may not be for the faint of heart but sure can be fun to watch.
The presidency of Barack Obama put American in a new era of race relations, Eugene Robinson provides a compelling look at race relations and diversity today. The author of the recently released Disintegration: The Splintering of Black America, Robinson explains why old conceptions of race in America are obsolete. Born into the segregated South, Robinson shares his memories with audiences, telling of the civil rights movement’s culminating years during a time when he was one of a handful of black students at a predominantly white high school in South Carolina. While he shares the strides that have been made in the enormous educational and economic progress made by African-Americans since the 1960s as well as the sharp increase in interracial marriage seen over the last few decades, he also shows that there is much that remains in educating people that race is ultimately meaningless—except as an artifact of society.
The number one question among journalists today is what new economic model will emerge to fund investigative journalism. While there is a wealth of news commentary, we are faced with a dearth of factual reporting. Eugene Robinson’s unique 25-year career includes covering beats as varied as city hall, foreign affairs, pop culture and national politics. He reminds audiences that while the media may have its failings, the profession is a time-honored watchdog that fights corruption and abuse. Today’s media holds extraordinary power over the political life of the nation and is less subject to control, even by the media moguls who are nominally in charge. The rise of 24-hour cable news and the Internet have vastly increased the flow of information, but have also short-circuited the traditional process. Robinson provides insights on the following:
Having spent years as a foreign correspondent in Latin America, Eugene Robinson has become an expert on the region. The author of Last Dance in Havana: The Final Days of Fidel and the Start of the New Cuban Revolution, Robinson, who is fluent in Spanish, has made a dozen trips to Cuba and interviewed all the key leaders in the region. He shares his views on the greatly ignored but vital hemisphere, key leaders and countries. Robinson explains that because Latin America plays an increasingly dominant role in global affairs, it is much easier to prevent problems with effective diplomacy rather than having to solve them after the fact. The United States has an imperative to improve diplomatic relations in the region in order to:
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