Kristal Brent Zook

Professor of Journalism, Media Studies, and Public Relations Hofstra University

  • Hempstead NY

Author and award-winning journalist whose work on race, women, culture and social justice has appeared in dozens of media outlets.

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Hofstra University

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Biography

Dr. Kristal Brent Zook is a professor of journalism in the Lawrence Herbert School of Communication at Hofstra University and has more than 30 years of experience as an author and award-winning journalist. She is a former contributing writer for The Washington Post and Essence and her work on race, women, culture and social justice has been published by dozens of magazines, newspapers and digital outlets, including The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, The New York Times Sunday Magazine, The New York Times Book Review, LIFE, TIME, Entertainment Weekly, the Nation, Vibe, and the Guardian. Dr. Zook has provided on-air commentary for NPR, CNN, BET, MTV, MSNBC, and C-Span and appeared on CNN’s “The Nineties” where she discussed black television. A highlight of her career was interviewing Oprah Winfrey. She is the author of four books, including her most recent, a memoir, The Girl in the Yellow Poncho.

Industry Expertise

Media - Print
Writing and Editing
Media - Online
Education/Learning

Areas of Expertise

Journalism
Media Analysis
Social Justice Issues
Politics
Race and Gender Relations

Accomplishments

The Girl in the Yellow Poncho

2023-08-08

In her memoir, The Girl in the Yellow Poncho (Duke University Press), Kristal Brent Zook recalls growing up biracial and the painful search for her white father while being raised by two generations of black women, her mother and grandmother. It speaks to the rapidly exploding multiracial population, and to a daughter’s story of faith, forgiveness, and redemption.

Education

University of California Santa Cruz

Ph.D.

History of Consciousness

1994

University of California Santa Barbara

B.A.

English

1987

Affiliations

  • National Association of Black Journalists
  • Essence Magazine - Contributing Writer
  • Alicia Patterson Foundation Board of Directors

Languages

  • Spanish

Media Appearances

Did Greed Derail a Handful of Tulsa Massacre Commemoration Events?

Medium  online

2021-06-01

A piece in Medium.com by Kristal Brent Zook, PhD, an author and professor of journalism at the Lawrence Herbert School of Communication, examines a controversy surrounding the 100th anniversary commemoration of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, in which a White mob looted and burned down a prosperous Black community, killing some 300 residents.

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Revisiting Sounder: Cicely Tyson’s first Oscar nod

Entertainment Weekly  print

2021-02-04

Kristal Brent Zook, PhD, an author and professor of journalism at the Lawrence Herbert School of Communication, contributed an essay to Entertainment Weekly’s new special edition, “A Celebration of Black Film,” which looks back at films and artists spanning the last century.

The piece, “Revisiting Sounder: Cicely Tyson’s first Oscar Nod,” published just days after the acclaimed actress’ death at age 96, discusses how “a simple story about a sharecropper family and their dog” reveals truths about institutional racism.

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Three Women Who Helped Their Sons Become Civil Rights Icons

The New York Times  print

2021-02-02

Professor Zook wrote a review for The New York Times of Anna Malaika Tubbs’ nonfiction book, "The Three Mothers: How the Mothers of Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, and James Baldwin Shaped a Nation." The book examines the lives of Alberta King, Louise Little, and Berdis Baldwin, whom Tubbs says were largely “ignored even though it should have been easy throughout history to see them, to at least wonder about them.”

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