Clarence Page

Clarence Page, the 1989 Pulitzer Prize winner for Commentary, has been a columnist and a member of the newspaper's editorial board since July 1984. His column is syndicated nationally by Tribune Media Services and he does twice-weekly commentary on WGN-TV, Chicago. He has been based in Washington, D.C. since May 1991.

Page is an occasional guest panelist on "The McLaughlin Group," a regular contributor of essays to the MacNeil/Lehrer News Hour and a host of documentaries on the Public Broadcasting System. He is a regular panelist on Black Entertainment Television's (BET) weekly "Lead Story" news panel program and a biweekly commentator for National Public Radio's (NPR) "Weekend Sunday."

Page was a reporter and assistant city editor for the Chicago Tribune from 1969 to 1980. He joined WBBM-TV in August 1980 as director of the Community Affairs Department. He was a reporter and planning editor at the station from August 1982 to July 1984.

Page's awards include a 1980 Illinois UPI award for community service for an investigative series titled "The Black Tax" and the Edward Scott Beck Award for overseas reporting of a 1976 series on the changing politics of Southern Africa. Page also participated in a 1972 Chicago Tribune Task Force series on vote fraud which won the Pulitzer Prize. He has received awards from the Illinois and

Wisconsin chapters of the American Civil Liberties Union for his columns on civil liberties and constitutional rights. He was inducted into the Chicago Journalism Hal of Fame in 1992.

As a freelance writer, he has published articles in Chicago Magazine, the Chicago Reader, Washington Monthly, New Republic, Wall Street Journal, New York Newsday, and Emerge. His new book, Showing My Color: Impolite Essays on Race and Identity, has been published by HarperCollins.

A 1965 graduate of Middletown High School, Middletown Ohio, he began his journalism career as a freelance writer and photographer for the Middletown Journal and Cincinnati Enquirer at the age of 17.

Page received his Bachelor of Science in journalism degree from Ohio University in 1969. He has received honorary degrees from Columbia College in Chicago and Lake Forest (Illinois) College.

Page was born in Dayton, Ohio, on June 2, 1947. He has been married since May 3, 1987, to the former Lisa Johnson of Chicago. They have one child.