Commencement Speaker: Ernie Suggs

Journalist Ernie Suggs earned his B.A. degree in English Literature from North Carolina Central University in 1990, where he was the editor in chief and sports editor of The Campus Echo. Upon graduation, he was awarded an internship by the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) to work for Gannett Newspapers. He returned to Durham, North Carolina in 1992, as a writer for The Herald-Sun. 

In 1996, Suggs was awarded a fellowship by the Education Writers Association, which culminated in his award-winning, Pulitzer-nominated series Fighting to Survive: Historically Black Colleges and Universities Face the 21st Century. He was hired as a reporter at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution in 1997. In 2005, Suggs became the vice-president of the NABJ. He was chosen for the prestigious Nieman Fellowship at Harvard University in 2008, and in 2009, he joined the Nieman Foundation’s board. 

Suggs was given the Pioneer Black Journalist Award by NABJ in 2013. In 2021, an endowed scholarship was created in his name to support NCCU journalism students who contribute to The Campus Echo. In 2022, he published his first book, “The Many Lives of Andrew Young,” which chronicles the life of the former Atlanta mayor, civil rights icon and United Nations ambassador. Finally, in 2023, he wrote and produced the Emmy-nominated, “The South Got Something to Say,” the AJC’s look at Southern hip-hop.