CAROL JENKINS
Recipient of the 2026 Queens College Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Award
January 2026
Host, Black America, Co-Author Black Titan: A.G. Gaston and the Making of a Black American Millionaire, Co-President, The Invisible Americans, Board Chair, Emerita, The ERA Coalition.
Carol Jenkins is an Emmy Award-winning television journalist, author and advocate for equality.
As a pioneering reporter, anchor and host, she broke through many barriers to women and people of color in American media, including co-hosting one of the industry’s first daily talk shows, Straight Talk, one of the premiere public affairs programs dedicated to Black Americans, Positively Black, and later hosting her own talk show, Carol Jenkins Live. Her equality work includes leadership in the founding of two national women’s organizations, The Women’s Media Center and the ERA Coalition, as well as the non-profit communications project to end US child poverty, The Invisible Americans Podcast.
She is currently the founding host of the award-winning interview program Black America, now in its 11th season of conversations on the City University of New York’s television station. The program won a 2025 national Telly Award as Best Interview Program for its interview with filmmaker Spike Lee.
She also produced and anchored Black America’s two award winning documentaries. More Than a Building: A Dream Come True, the PBS-aired opening of the Smithsonian African American Museum; and the Telly award winning Conscience of America, on the Birmingham Civil Rights Monument established by President Obama. The centerpiece of that historic district is the A.G. Gaston Motel, built by her uncle, which served as headquarters for Martin Luther King, Jr during his momentous desegregation efforts there. Carol is the co-author with her daughter Elizabeth Hines of an award-winning biography of her uncle, Black Titan: A.G. Gaston and the Making of a Black American Millionaire.
Carol had a twenty-five-year career as one of New York City’s leading anchors and correspondents at WNBC-TV. Her work included coverage of the historic release of Nelson Mandela from a South African prison, as well as U.S. presidential and New York City politics.
After her active years as a reporter, she served as founding president of the Women’s Media Center, created by Gloria Steinem, Jane Fonda and Robin Morgan to combat the absence of women as subjects and leaders in the media. While there she created the Progressive Women’s Voices project which continues to shape leaders in politics, advocacy and the media. Each year a WMC Carol Jenkins award is given to a woman demonstrating the “powerful and visible” mantra of WMC.
For nearly a decade Carol has worked to amend the U.S. Constitution in roles as both Board Chair and President and CEO of the ERA Coalition. In January of 2025 President Biden declared the ERA “the law of the land,” giving the ERA Coalition a major victory. While President and CEO of the ERA Coalition, comprised of some 300 national and local organizations, she testified before the US House Committee on Oversight and Reform about the impoverishment of women and children in America in the absence of an ERA. In May of 2025 she was honored as Chair Emerita of the ERA Coalition.
Among her ongoing projects, Carol is co-founder and co-host of the non-profit media project, now in its fifth season, The Invisible Americans Podcast, raising awareness of the nearly 13 million children in the United States who live in poverty. Among her other commitments, she serves as a board member of the US board of Amref Health Africa, the continent’s largest African health organization, serving more than 35 countries.
Among the honors she has recently received—the Forbes Magazine Fifty Over Fifty Impact Award, the Vanguard Award from the Shabazz Center, and Distinguished Alumna Awards from Boston University and New York University.
Recent profiles include a NewsDay retrospective, “From Anchor to Activist,” a half hour dedicated to her media career and activism on A Slice of New York on CUNY TV and an update on her projects in The New York Amsterdam News.
Carol Jenkins lives in New York City near her two adult children and three grandchildren. She credits her commitment to the pursuit of equality to her Alabama family and birthplace. The family’s Lowndes County farm, where she spent her early life, was later the third stopover for the historic 1965 Selma to Montgomery march led by Martin Luther King, Jr and John Lewis. The march led to the Voting Rights Act, often called the most effective civil rights legislation passed by Congress.
Contact: carol@caroljenkinsmedia.com
Black America on CUNY TV: tv.cuny.edu/show/blackamerica
The Invisible Americans Podcast: www.theinvisibleamericans.com
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