Leonard Pitts
Pitts at 2015Texas Book Festival
Born	(1957-10-11)October 11, 1957 (age 67) Orange, California, U.S.
Alma mater	University of Southern California
Occupations	Commentator journalist novelist columnist

Leonard Garvey Pitts Jr. (born October 11, 1957)^[1] is an Americancommentator,journalist, andnovelist. He is a nationallysyndicated columnist^[2] and winner of the 2004Pulitzer Prize for Commentary. He was originally hired by theMiami Herald to critique music, but quickly received his own column, in which he has dealt extensively withrace,politics, and culture from aprogressive perspective.^[3]

Raised inLos Angeles and educated at theUniversity of Southern California, Pitts currently lives inBowie, Maryland. He has won awards for his writing from theSociety of Professional Journalists, theAmerican Society of Newspaper Editors, and theNational Association of Black Journalists, and he was first nominated for thePulitzer Prize in 1993, eventuallyclaiming the honor in 2004.^[4]

Pitts' first book,Becoming Dad: Black Men and the Journey to Fatherhood, was published in 2006. His first novel,Before I Forget, was released in March 2009, and earned astarred review fromPublishers Weekly. The novel centers on a faded soul singer whoseearly-onset Alzheimer's disease compels him to reconnect with his father and son. Pitts's third book,Forward from This Moment: Selected Columns, 1994–2008, was published in August 2009. It is a selection of his columns from theMiami Herald.

Pitts gained national recognition for his widely circulated column of September 12, 2001, "We'll go forward from this moment", in which he described the toughness of the American spirit in the face of theSeptember 11 attacks.^[5]

In June 2007, Pitts was the subject of a campaign ofdeath threats and harassment, includingneo-NaziBill White, who were angry at a column he wrote about themurders of Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom, a white couple who were raped and murdered by five black assailants inKnoxville, Tennessee. In his column addressing the murders, Pitts wrote:

I am [...] unkindly disposed toward the crackpots, incendiaries and flat-out racists who have chosen this tragedy upon which to take an obscene and ludicrous stand. I have four words for them and any otherwhite Americans who feel themselves similarly victimized. Cry me a river.^[6][7]

More death threats were made in April 2008 before his appearance at theUniversity of Puget Sound.^[8][9]

• Becoming Dad: Black Men and the Journey to Fatherhood. Agate Bolden. 2006.ISBN 978-1-932841-17-6.
• Pitts, Leonard (2009).Forward from This Moment: Selected Columns, 1994-2008. Agate.ISBN 978-1-932841-32-9.

• Before I Forget. Chicago: Agate Bolden. 2009.ISBN 978-1-932841-43-5.
• Freeman. Chicago: Agate Bolden. 2012.ISBN 978-1-932841-64-0.
• Grant Park. Chicago: Agate Bolden. 2015.ISBN 978-1-932841-91-6.
• The Last Thing You Surrender. Chicago: Agate Bolden. 2019.ISBN 978-1-572842-45-8.

Wikimedia Commons has media related toLeonard Pitts.

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