In this keynote lecture celebrating Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s life and legacy building the beloved community, veteran broadcaster and journalist, Ray Suarez, will reflect on the work of his new book: We Are Home: Becoming American in the 21st Century: an Oral History. Suarez will share the voices, contributions, stories, and struggles of immigrants seeking freedom, dignity and humanity to become American in the 21^st century.

Co-sponsored by the Center for Student Engagement, the Pell Center for International Relations and Public Policy, the Office of Multicultural Programs and Retention, and the McAuley Institute for Mercy Education.

Journalist and author Ray Suarez currently serves as the host of On Shifting Ground, a radio program syndicated on NPR and PRX stations across the U.S., exploring international fault lines and featuring conversations with leaders, journalists, and policy experts to read between the headlines and give us hope for human resilience.

He is the author of several books and many essays, chapters, and articles, with his most recent publication being the focus of our MLK Week 2025 Keynote event: We Are Home: Becoming American in the 21st Century: An Oral History. We Are Home (2024) tells the stories of modern immigrants to the United States and the demographic and cultural change they bring to the country. His earlier books include the companion volume to the PBS documentary series, Latino Americans: The 500 Year Legacy That Shaped a Nation (2013), The Holy Vote: The Politics of Faith in America (2006), which examines the tightening relationship between religion and electoral politics, and The Old Neighborhood: What We Lost in the Great Suburban Migration (1999), unpacking the decades of disinvestment and white flight in urban America.

In 2022, Suarez was a visiting professor at NYU Shanghai, teaching and lecturing an international student body in the Department of Political Science. In 2018, he was appointed the John J. McCloy Visiting Professor of American Studies at Amherst College. He earned a BA in African History from New York University and an MA in the Social Sciences from the University of Chicago.

From 2013-2016, he was the host of Al Jazeera America’s (AJAM) daily news program, Inside Story. Before going to AJAM, Suarez spent 14 years as a correspondent and anchor at public television’s nightly newscast, The PBS NewsHour, where he rose to become chief national correspondent. Suarez came to The NewsHour after six years as the Washington-based host of NPR’s Talk of the Nation.

The National Council of La Raza (now UNIDOS US) gave Suarez its Ruben Salazar Award and the National Association of Hispanic Journalists inducted him into the organization’s Hall of Fame. An active layman in the Episcopal Church, Suarez also serves as a member of the lay board of trustees of Washington National Cathedral.