photo taken by Andre Beckles

Ron Howell, a journalist who has written extensively about the Caribbean, Latin American and New York City, is an Associate Professor in the English Department (Journalism Program) at Brooklyn College and author of One Hundred Jobs: A Panorama of Work in the American City. In 1987 Howell was the first journalist to report that Assata Shakur, born Joanne Chesimard, was living in Cuba under a grand of asylum from Fidel Castro.

Over the past four decades, Howell has been a staff writer for Newsday, The New York Daily News, The Baltimore Evening Sun, Ebony Magazine and The Associated Press.

Howell's mother, the late Marian Baker Howell, was a daughter of Bertram L. Baker, the Boss of Black Brooklyn.