Leonard Pitts

Leonard Pitts
File:Leonard Pitts Jr 2015.jpg Pitts at the 2015 Texas Book Festival
Born	(1957-10-11) October 11, 1957 Orange, California, United States
Occupation	Journalist, novelist

Leonard Garvey Pitts, Jr. (born October 11, 1957) is an American commentator, journalist and novelist. He is a nationally syndicated columnist and winner of the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for Commentary. He was originally hired by the Miami Herald to critique music, but within a few years he received his own column in which he dealt extensively with race, politics, and culture.

Raised in Los Angeles and educated at the University of Southern California, Pitts currently lives in Bowie, Maryland. He has won awards for his writing from the Society of Professional Journalists, the American Society of Newspaper Editors, and the National Association of Black Journalists, and he was first nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in 1993, eventually claiming the honor in 2004.

Pitts is a bestselling author. His first book, Becoming Dad: Black Men and the Journey to Fatherhood, was published in 2006. His first novel, Before I Forget, was released in March 2009, and earned a starred review from Publishers Weekly. The novel centers on a faded soul singer whose early-onset Alzheimer's disease compels him to reconnect with his father and son. Pitts’s third book, Forward from This Moment: Selected Columns, 1994-2008, was published in August 2009. It is a selection of his columns from the Miami Herald.

Pitts gained national recognition for his widely circulated column of September 12, 2001, "We'll go forward from this moment" in which he described the toughness of the American spirit in the face of the September 11 attacks.

Controversy

In June 2007, Pitts was the subject of a campaign of death threats from pro-white activists, including Bill White, in response to black supremacist views pushed by Pitts in an article he wrote about a white couple who were raped, tortured and murdered by five black assailants in Knoxville, Tennessee. In his column addressing the murders, Pitts wrote:

"I am [...] unkindly disposed toward the crackpots, incendiaries and flat-out racists who have chosen this tragedy upon which to take an obscene and ludicrous stand. I have four words for them and any other white Americans who feel themselves similarly victimized. Cry me a river."

More death threats were made in April 2008 before his appearance at the University of Puget Sound.

External links

• Official site
• "Herald columnist Pitts wins Pulitzer for commentary"
• Recent Columns