Owens, Hicks Come to DBC as Senior Fellows

Former Congressman Major R. Owens and Jonathan P. Hicks, former New York Times reporter, join DBC as senior fellows.

The DuBois Bunche Center for Public Policy at Medgar Evers College is delighted to announce that former Congressman Major R. Owens, who represented Brooklyn in the House of Representatives for more than two decades, and Jonathan P. Hicks, an award-winning journalist who worked for nearly 25 years at The New York Times, have joined the Center as senior fellows.

Dr. Edison O. Jackson, the president of Medgar Evers College, said: “The appointment of the visionary Congressman Major Owens and the distinguished journalist Jonathan Hicks as senior fellows at the DuBois Bunche Center will enhance the college’s ability to formulate progressive policies that will benefit our urban centers.”

Major Owens

Congressman Owens served as a member of Congress representing Central Brooklyn from 1983 to 2005. As a senior fellow and distinguished lecturer for the DuBois Bunche Center, he brings a wealth of expertise that was cultivated as a result of the leadership that he provided during his tenure as a New York City Commissioner, State Senator and a member of the United States House of Representatives. Congressman Owens is widely respected for his lifelong commitment to reducing poverty in the United States and throughout the developing world. He is also respected for his legislative leadership and for fighting to eliminate barriers to educational opportunity. A librarian by profession, Congressman Owens was honored by being named as a Kluge Fellow for Scholars at the Library of Congress upon his retirement from the United States House of Representatives.

In Congress, he distinguished himself by successfully sponsoring and passing more legislation than any other member of New York City’s Congressional delegation since Adam Clayton Powell Jr. As chairman of the House Subcommittee on Select Education and Civil Rights, Congressman Owens directly sponsored and managed the passage of legislation on child abuse prevention, television decoding for the hearing impaired. He authored legislation that aided historically and predominantly black colleges and the landmark American Disabilities Act, which bars discrimination again st people with disabilities in employment and other areas.

At home in Brooklyn, Congressman Owens is widely seen as a tireless organizer. As president of the Brooklyn-based Coalition for Community Empowerment, he provided leadership on the revision of New York’s City Charter and campaigned for a special prosecutor for racial bias and brutality cases.

Jonathan Hicks

Jonathan Hicks comes to the Center with 30 years of experience covering politics, business, industry and the role of people of color in the world of business. For 24 years, he worked for The New York Times, where he covered the politics of New York State and New York City. During that time, he developed a reputation as one of the foremost authorities on the inner workings of the political culture in New York City and New York State. He has been a frequent guest on local radio and television news programs where he regularly offered political analysis and commentary. He was also the author of the Politics 5-B column for The Times’ website. He is also the script writer for a Back Door Channels: The Price of Peace,” a documentary by Channel Productions that looks at the behind-the-scenes events behind the historic Camp David accord between Egypt, Israel and the United States. The film was selected to open this year’s Monte Carlo Television Festival.

Mr. Hicks has also been a guest lecturer at a number of colleges and universities, including the London School of Printing, Columbia University, Swarthmore College, Southern University and the University of Missouri. He has also been a member of the visiting faculty at the Maynard Institute Summer Program for Minority Journalists at the University of California at Berkeley and the Century Foundation’s Century Institute Summer Program at Williams College

Before coming to The Times, Mr. Hicks was a business reporter for the Cleveland Plain-Dealer, where he covered a wide range of topics from labor to manufacturing. Prior to that, he was a general assignment reporter at The Arizona Daily Star in Tucson, where he had previously been an announcer at a National Public Radio affiliate station

The DuBois Bunche Center for Public Policy is dedicated to forging and highlighting solutions to the challenges confronting people of color living within urban communities in the United States and throughout the African Diaspora. DBC produces research, formulates policies, sponsors conferences and produces public affairs media programming that seeks to advance economic and social justice.