Rochelle Riley

ROCHELLE RILEY is Director of Arts and Culture for the City of Detroit. In addition to "The Burden," she is co-author of "That They Lived: African Americans Who Changed The World," a collection of essays and photographs about famous African Americans that all children should know (Wayne State University Press, February, 2021). Rochelle spent nearly a quarter century as a columnist when she left the Detroit Free Press in 2019 to focus on arts and culture. She left journalism with a bang, getting inducted into the North Carolina Media and Journalism Hall of Fame and receiving the National Headliner Award for best local columns, both in 2019. She also is a member of the Michigan Journalism Hall of Fame. Rochelle is a co-founder of Letters to Black Girls, an initiative to give letters of advice and encouragement from women across the country to girls across the country.