And our 2024 Commencement speaker is . . . Joy-Ann Reid!!!!

By Nick Masuda  |  nicholas.masuda31@mec.cuny.edu

Medgar Evers College excitedly announces that Joy-Ann Reid, the popular MSNBC host of “The ReidOut” and author of Medgar and Myrlie: Medgar Evers and the Love Story that Awakened America, will be our 2024 Commencement Speaker.

Commencement is slated for 10 a.m. on May 31, 2024 at the Coney Island Amphitheater.

“We are beyond thrilled that Ms. Reid will be joining us to honor our hard-working students for their tireless efforts in achieving their academic dreams,” said Dr. Ramsey, President of Medgar Evers College. “For our graduates to hear a speaker who showed enough interest in the College to stop by for a visit to chat with some of our students, and to learn more about the college named for Medgar Wiley Evers whom she wrote about in her best-selling book, “Medgar and Myrlie,” speaks volumes. Ms. Reid’s storytelling is world-class and her connection to the Evers family mission will make this commencement a very special one for our graduates as they prepare to go out into the world.”

Ms. Reid is a 1991 Harvard University graduate with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Visual and Environmental Studies with a concentration in documentary film. She is also a 2003 Knight Center for Advanced Journalism fellow.

Ms. Reid has a longtime interest in politics and elections. During a hiatus from the news business, she worked as a press secretary for the national voter registration and mobilization entity, America Coming Together in 2004 and for the Florida branch of Barack Obama’s presidential campaign in 2008.

While she is predominantly known for her television work that includes the weekend program: “A.M. Joy” (2016-2020) and a daily news show “The Reid Report” (2014-2015), she is also an author of four books. Those include:

• Fracture: Barack Obama, the Clintons and the Racial Divide
• We Are the Change We Seek: The Speeches of Barack Obama (with Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne)
• The Man Who Sold America: Trump and the Unraveling of the American Story (a New York Times best-seller)
• Medgar and Myrlie: Medgar Evers and the Love Story That Awakened America

She has received four NAACP Image Award nominations and “The ReidOut” received the award for best talk program in 2020. 

The documentary she co-executive produced: “The Sit-In: Harry Belafonte Hosts the Tonight Show” (directed by Yoruba Richen) was nominated for an Emmy Award. 

Ms. Reid has also received media awards from the Women’s Media Center, the National Action Network, and GLAAD. 

In November 2021, Reid became an honorary member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc.