Michele Norris is a journalist currently working as an opinion columnist and consultant for The Washington Post as well as the founding director of The Race Card Project (TRCP). Norris launched TRCP in 2010 with the goal of beginning conversations about race by inviting people around the world to share their experiences, questions, hopes, dreams, laments, and observations about identity in just six words. Norris and collaborators won a Peabody Award in 2014 for excellence in electronic communication for the project. From 2012 to 2015, Norris worked as a special correspondent for NPR, covering race and identity in America, and prior to that, from 2002 to 2012, she hosted NPR's “All Things Considered,” becoming the first female African American host for the program. Before joining NPR, Norris worked for a decade as a television correspondent for ABC News in the Washington Bureau, where she was awarded both Emmy and Peabody Awards for her coverage of 9/11 and its aftermath. Norris and her husband, Broderick Johnson, have maintained a close friendship with the Obamas over the years.

“There is often grace in silence. But there is always power in understanding.” Michele Norris