Jelani Cobb

“Three or More Is a Riot is an archive of a writer at the height of his powers—and his powers are many. Insight, historical memory, reportage, pith, and, not least of all, wit. All these gifts Jelani Cobb deploys here without missing a beat, effortlessly weaving them into his own distinctive style.”—Ta-Nehisi Coates, author of The Message

Jelani is a staff writer at The New Yorker, where he writes on history, justice, politics, and democracy, as well as Columbia University’s Ira A. Lipman Professor of Journalism and Dean of Columbia Journalism School.

His most recent book, Three or More Is a Riot (2025), is a collection of both published and original writing from his frontline reporting over the last decade. As one of the most insightful and important figures in American journalism, Jelani draws on his storied career to offer a look back at one of the most consequential eras of American history, and a look forward at what lies ahead. Three or More Is a Riot is a vital contribution to the question of what it means to be American.

He previously co-edited The Matter of Black Lives, a collection of The New Yorker’s most ground-breaking writing on Black history and culture in America, featuring the work of legendary writers like James Baldwin and Toni Morrison. Jelani also edited and wrote a new introduction for The Kerner Commission—a historic study of American racism and police violence originally published in 1967—helping to contextualize it for a new generation.

During a historic election, Jelani investigated allegations of voter fraud and disenfranchisement as a PBS Frontline correspondent in the documentary Whose Vote Counts, revealing how these unfounded claims entered the political mainstream. He clearly presents how racial inequities, COVID-19, and voter suppression became interlinked crises. Whose Vote Counts received a Peabody Award for tackling one of the key issues at the heart of modern U.S. politics and carefully elucidating what the fight for voting rights looks like in the 21st century. Jelani was also the correspondent for the Frontline documentary Policing the Police, where he examined the movement for police reform and accountability. Jelani was prominently featured in Ava Duvernay’s 13th, her Oscar-nominated documentary about the current mass incarceration of Black Americans, which traces the subject to its historical origins in the Thirteenth Amendment.

Jelani was named the American Humanist Association’s 2025 Humanist of the Year. Fish Stark, Executive Director of the American Humanist Association, said, “Dr. Cobb is a secular educator in the best sense—someone who teaches his students not what to think, but how to think, both clearly and ethically. Dr. Cobb has never flinched when confronting the hard truths of our time. He has been a fierce advocate of our democratic ideals and has embodied a humanist patriotism—one that says we owe each other better.”

Jelani is the recipient of the Hillman Prize for opinion and analysis journalism, as well as the Walter Bernstein Award from the Writer’s Guild of America for his investigative work on Policing the Police. He is the author of Substance of Hope: Barack Obama and the Paradox of Progress, and To the Break of Dawn: A Freestyle on the Hip Hop Aesthetic. He is also a recipient of fellowships from the Ford Foundation, the Fulbright Foundation and the Shorenstein Center at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. He currently serves on the Board of Directors of the American Journalism Project, and was elected to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences in 2023. He was appointed the Dean of Columbia Journalism School in 2022.