Juan González has been a journalist, scholar and activist for more than fifty
years. A columnist for New York’s Daily News from 1987 to 2016, he has co-hosted
since 1996 the daily radio/TV news show Democracy Now. He has been a professor
of journalism and media studies at Rutgers University and is currently a Senior
Fellow at the Great Cities Institute of University of Illinois-Chicago.
A recipient of two George Polk Awards, González was the first Latino
journalist inducted into the New York Journalism Hall of Fame by the Society of
Professional Journalists’ Deadline Club. A founding member NAHJ, he served as the
organization’s president from 2002 to 2004.

He has authored five books, including the classic Harvest of Empire: A History
of Latinos in America, and News for All the People: The Epic Story of Race and the
American Media, a New York Times best-seller and finalist for the Robert F. Kennedy
Award.

More than two dozen films have featured González, including the PBS series
Latino Americans; the CNN special 1968, The Year that Changed America; and Spike-
TV’s Viva Baseball.

During the late 1960s, he was a founder and leader of the radical Young
Lords and later served as first president of the National Congress for Puerto Rican
Rights.