A Special Conversation with Award-Winning Journalist Betty DeRamus

The Award-Winning Journalist Betty DeRamus author of two nonfiction books, Forbidden Fruit: Love Stories from the Underground Railroad and Freedom by Any Means: True Stories of Cunning and Courage on the Underground Railroad published by Atria Books, a division of Simon & Schuster, both books stress the achievements of mostly little-known African-American heroes and heroines of the 18th and 19th century. Betty has been a Detroit News columnist writing for the Detroit Free Press and the Associated Press, one of a handful of print journalists who watched Nelson Mandela walk out of prison in 1990. For her coverage of Mandela’s release, she won an award for international reporting from the National Association of Black Journalists. She became a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize in commentary for columns about the Los Angeles riots. Her personal essays about African American life and culture have appeared in Thinking Black; The Darden Dilemma; and Chicken Soup for the African American Woman’s Soul.