Allison Keyes
Allison Keyes is an award-winning journalist with almost 20 years of experience in print, radio, and television. She has been reporting for NPR's national desk since October 2005. Her reports can be heard on Morning Edition, All Things Considered, and Weekend Edition Sunday.
Keyes coverage includes news and features on a wide variety of topics. "I've done everything from interviewing musician Dave Brubeck to profiling a group of kids in Harlem that are learning responsibility and getting educational opportunities from an Ice Hockey league, to hanging out with a group of black cowboys in Brooklyn who are keeping the tradition alive." Her reports include award-winning coverage of the Sept. 11 terror attacks in New York, coverage of the changes John Ashcroft sought in the Patriot Act, and the NAACP lawsuit against gun companies.
In 2002 Keyes joined NPR as a reporter and substitute host for The Tavis Smiley Show. She switched to News and Notes when it launched in January 2005. Keyes enjoyed the unique opportunity News & Notes gave her to cover events that affect communities of color on a national level. "Most news outlets only bother to cover crime and the predictable museum opening or occasional community protest," she said. "But people have a right to know what's going on and how it will affect them and their communities."
In addition to working with NPR, Keyes occasionally writes and produces segments for the ABC News shows Good Morning America and World News Tonight.
Keyes is familiar with public radio, having worked intermittently for NPR since 1995. She also spent a little less than a year hosting and covering City Hall and politics for WNYC Radio. Prior to that, she spent several years at WCBS Newsradio 880.
Keyes' eyewitness reports on the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in New York earned her the Newswoman's Club of New York 2002 Front Page Award for Breaking News, and, along with WCBS Newsradio staff, the New York State Associated Press Broadcast Award for Breaking News and Continuing Coverage. Her report on the funeral of Patrick Dorismond earned her the National Association of Black Journalists' 2001 Radio News Award.
In addition to radio, Keyes has worked in cable television and print. She has reported for Black Enterprise Magazine, co-authored two African-American history books as well as the African American Heritage Perpetual Calendar, and has written profiles for various magazines and Internet news outlets in Chicago and New York.
Keyes got her start in radio at NPR member station WBEZ in Chicago, IL, in 1988 as an assistant news director, anchor, and reporter. She graduated from Illinois Wesleyan University with a degree in English and journalism. She is a member of Delta Sigma Theta Inc. and the National Association of Black Journalists.
When not on the air, Keyes can be found singing jazz, listening to opera, or hanging out with her very, very large cat.
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Officials with the Drug Enforcement Agency are meeting with Maryland state police and other law enforcement officers on Thursday. They hope to find a way to head off a tainted heroin mixture that has killed nearly 40 people in the state since September. Officials say the drug is affecting users in both the suburbs and inner cities, and groups that offer services to drug abusers are moving quickly to warn users to watch out for the deadly heroin-fentanyl combination.
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The diary contains handwritten notes by Alfred Rosenberg, a top aide to Adolf Hitler who helped shape Nazi ideology. Sara Bloomfield, director of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, says it took 17 years to procure the diary. -
The father of funk has been in court, trying to reclaim ownership of songs like "Atomic Dog." -
The burning of Qurans by the U.S. military in Afghanistan has led to days of rioting by Muslims who say it was a desecration of their holy book and an affront to Islam. Many faiths prescribe specific rituals for disposing of their sacred texts. -
The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum and Ancestry.com's World Memory Project allows people to sift online through hundreds of thousands of documents that previously required a painstaking manual search.
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The writer-producer-arranger had a voice that was clear and powerful, and his piano-playing is remarkable in its own right. Although Hathaway is perhaps best known for his duets with singer Roberta Flack, the body of work he left behind when he died 30 years ago is part of the bedrock of American soul music. -
Many friends and colleagues of Bruce Ivins, a government researcher who was under investigation for the anthrax attacks of 2001, have said they are certain that investigators are pointing to the wrong man. But his estranged brother says he believes the allegations.
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A new exhibit at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C., features photos and portraits of hip hop performers and a wall of graffiti. The show likens rap and hip hop to self portraiture. Most of the lyrics, after all, are boasts about the emcee's prowess and badness.
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Americans honored veterans around the country Sunday in celebration of Veterans Day. Former Secretary of State Colin Powell spoke to mourners gathered at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. It is the 25th anniversary of the memorial wall. -
James Seale, 71, faces life in prison after being convicted of kidnapping and conspiracy in the 1964 murder of two black teens in Mississippi. Members of the victims' families welcome the verdict as a sign of how much the state has changed.
