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Charles Blow
2016 Icon
Journalist and Commentator
b. August 11, 1970
“One thing the gay rights movement taught the world is the importance of being visible.”
Charles Blow is an American journalist and a columnist for The New York Times. As the only African-American columnist on the paper’s opinion pages, Blow focuses twice weekly on issues of social justice, race relations and the pitfalls of politics.
Before becoming a commentator, Blow was the youngest head of the graphics design department at The Times, a position he held for nine years. During his tenure, he helped the newspaper win several prestigious awards, including a Best of Show from the Society for News Design for coverage of the September 11 attacks. It was the first time the award had ever been given to a newspaper for outstanding graphic design.
Blow has also worked at National Geographic and The Detroit News. He regularly appears on the BBC, CNN, Fox News, MSNBC and HBO to discuss timely topics related to his column and his own life. He came out publicly as a bisexual in 2014 in his memoir, “Fire Shut Up in My Bones.” The coming-of-age account has been named a New York Times Notable Book, a Lambda Literary Award Winner and a PEN Open Book Award nominee. In it he writes candidly about his sexuality:
“In addition to being attracted to women, I could also be attracted to men. There it was, all of it. That possibility of male attraction was such a simple little harmless idea, the fight against which I had allowed to consume and almost ruin my life. The attraction and my futile attempts to ‘fix it’ had cost me my dreams.”
The book not only chronicles Blow’s struggle with identity, but also provides insights into the sexual abuse he suffered as a child at the hands of an older male cousin. The author admits that he spent years trying to unravel the relationship between the abuse and his own sexuality. He has spoken candidly on the subject on several television shows, including “Real Time with Bill Maher,” “Piers Morgan Tonight” and “Anderson Cooper 360.”
Blow is a single father of three. A native of Louisiana, he lives in Brooklyn, New York.
