Dr. Stacey Patton is an award-winning journalist and author who writes about race, politics, popular culture, child welfare issues, diversity in media, and higher education. She is a research associate at Morgan State University’s Institute for Urban Research and a professor of digital journalism at Howard University in the Cathy Hughes School of Communications.
As an adoptee, child abuse survivor, and former foster youth, Patton is a nationally recognized child advocate whose research focuses on the intersections of race and childhood, corporal punishment in schools, the school-to-prison pipeline, and the impact of physical punishment on children’s psychological and physical health. She is the author of That Mean Old Yesterday – A Memoir (Simon and Schuster), Spare the Kids: Why Whupping Children Won’t Save Black America (Beacon Press), and the forthcoming book, Strung Up: The Lynching of Black Children and Teenagers in America (Beacon Press).
Patton’s writings have appeared in the New York Times, Baltimore Sun, Washington Post, Chronicle of Higher Education, Al Jazeera, BBC News, DAME Magazine and TheRoot.com. She has appeared on MSNBC, Fox News, CNN, CBS, Al Jazeera, The Tavis Smiley Show, Here and Now, and Democracy Now.
She has received reporting awards from the William Randolph Hearst Foundation, Scripps Howard Foundation, New York Women in Communications, National (and New York) Association of Black Journalists, The Education Writer’s Association, and she is the 2015 recipient of the Vernon Jarrett Medal for Excellence in reporting on American race relations. The American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children the American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children also bestowed her with the Outstanding Service and Advancement of Cultural Competency in Child Maltreatment Prevention and Intervention Award.
