Freelance journalist wins $100,000 prize for work impacting underrepresented communities

AP | A freelance journalist with a project focused on Black nationalism has won the American Mosaic Journalism Prize, which honors work about underrepresented groups in the United States.

Dara T. Mathis was awarded US$100,000 from the Heising-Simons Foundation. That’s believed to be the largest prize in dollar value given to journalists in the United States.

The Maryland-based Mathis was honored for her article in The Atlantic, “A Blueprint for Black Liberation,” where she wrote about growing up in a radical Black commune and the broader history of such movements. She’s working on expanding that piece into a memoir.

“As a Black writer, I am keenly aware of how the stories of marginalized people are excluded from the archive,” Mathis said. “My work as a journalist seeks to connect silenced histories to our present day.”

The foundation’s yearly award was established in 2018.