Don Terry, Staff Writer

For more than a quarter century, Don Terry has written about the era’s defining political and social issues.

As a City Hall reporter at the Chicago Sun-Times, he covered the city’s first African-American mayor, Harold Washington, and the racially charged City Council polarization known as “Council Wars.” As a national correspondent for the New York Times, he reported on the Rodney King riots in Los Angeles, the Oklahoma City Federal Building bombing and the standoff with federal agents at Waco, Texas. Most recently, as a Sunday Magazine staff writer for the Chicago Tribune, he wrote long-form articles on subjects including HIV/AIDS, tracking war criminals in Rwanda and the encroachment of development on rural life. He began his career at the Chicago Defender.

Terry was part of a team of writers awarded the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for the series “How Race Is Lived in America.” He also has received the Peter Lisagor Award for feature writing, the Global Health Council Excellence in Media Award and the Studs Terkel Award for longstanding excellence in reporting about Chicago’s diverse communities.