About Us
The Root is a daily online magazine that provides thought-provoking commentary on today's news from a variety of black perspectives. The site also hosts an interactive genealogical section to trace one's ancestry through AfricanDNA.com, a DNA testing site co-founded by Henry Louis Gates, Jr., who is also The Root's Editor-In-Chief. The Root aims to be an unprecedented departure from traditional American journalism, raising the profile of black voices in mainstream media and engaging anyone interested in black culture around the world.
Submission Guidelines
The Root commentaries aim to to spark lively discussions on our site, as well as dialogue with other conversations taking place on the Web through embedded links to videos and other news and commentaries on blogs, newspapers, webzines, organization sites and video. Essays should be 500-800 words in length. Please copy and paste the essay within the body of the email, as well attach it as a Word document. (Hyperlinks can be inserted from the tool bar.) Please send submissions, along with a one paragraph author bio, and phone and email contact information, to submissions@theroot.com. For general comments, please send an email to readerfeedback@theroot.com
The Root and Amazon Associates
The Root is part of the Amazon Associates program. When we mention books, CDs, and other products, we include links to their Amazon pages. If readers follow those links and buy products from Amazon, The Root receives a commission.
The Root is published by Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive.
Leadership
Donna Byrd
Publisher, TheRoot.com
Donna Byrd is Publisher of TheRoot.com, a daily online magazine that provides thought-provoking commentary on today's news from a variety of black perspectives. As publisher, Byrd leverages her expertise in marketing, strategic business planning and digital innovation to lead one of the top African American-focused daily magazines on the Web.
Prior to joining TheRoot.com, Byrd was CEO of Black America Web, where she worked with entrepreneur and national radio personality Tom Joyner to launch one of the top three African-American news and lifestyle websites. Most recently, she was a founding partner with Kickoff Marketing, a strategic planning and brand firm, where she used her extensive experience in brand development, marketing and strategic planning.
Her interest and expertise in the internet space began in 1999 when she served as Vice President of Marketing for Ezgov.com, which facilitates communication and interaction between governments and their constituents.
Byrd has held previous positions at The Coca-Cola Company and Procter and Gamble where she developed and managed marketing strategies and advertising for new products, among other initiatives.
Byrd has a B.A. in American Government from the University of Virginia and an MBA from Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business.
Henry Louis Gates Jr.
Editor-in-Chief
Henry Louis Gates, Jr. is Editor-in-Chief of The Root. He is also co-founder of AfricanDNA.com, the site that powers the genealogy section of The Root.
Gates is the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and Director of the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research at Harvard University. He is most recently the author of Finding Oprah's Roots, Finding Your Own (Crown, 2007) and the host and executive producer of the critically acclaimed PBS series "African American Lives" and "Oprah's Roots."
Gates is Editor-in-Chief of the Oxford African American Studies Center, the first comprehensive scholarly online resource in the field of African American and Africana Studies. An influential cultural critic, Gates has written for Time magazine, The New Yorker, and The New York Times.
Gates earned his M.A. and Ph.D. in English literature from Clare College at the University of Cambridge. He received a B.A. in history, summa cum laude, from Yale University in 1973. The recipient of 48 honorary degrees and a 1981 MacArthur Foundation "Genius Award," Professor Gates was also named one of Time magazine's "25 Most Influential Americans" in 1997, one of the "100 Most Influential Black Americans" by Ebony in 2005, received a National Humanities Medal in 1998, and in 1999 was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
Joel Dreyfuss
Managing Editor
Joel Dreyfuss brings more than 35 years of experience as a journalist, editor and news executive to The Root. He has been editor-in-chief of Red Herring and Information Week, editor of PC Magazine, executive editor of Black Enterprise, a senior writer at Bloomberg Markets and editor-in-chief of Urban Box Office, an Internet startup.
He also served two stints at Fortune, first as an associate editor and Tokyo bureau chief, and later as a senior editor and personal technology columnist. Earlier he worked at USA Today and The Washington Post. He was also a news producer at KPIX in San Francisco and on-air reporter for KQED's Newsroom and WNET's 51st State.
He is co-author of The Bakke Case: The Politics of Inequality (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1989). Many of his articles and essays have been included in anthologies.
A native of Haiti, Dreyfuss grew up in Paris, France; Monrovia, Liberia, and New York City. He earned a B.S. degree at the City College of the City University of New York and was an Urban Journalism Fellow at the University of Chicago. He is a founder of the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
Natalie Hopkinson
Associate Editor
Before joining The Root, Natalie Hopkinson was an assignment editor in the Washington Post's Sunday commentary and debate section and a youth culture writer in the newspaper's Style section. She is co-author of "Deconstructing Tyrone: A New Look at Black Masculinity in the Hip-Hop Generation." A graduate of Howard University, she holds a doctorate in journalism and public communication from the University of Maryland-College Park.
