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Charles Blow

On this date in 1970, journalist Charles McRay Blow was born in Shreveport, La., the youngest of five sons of Toi “Billie” and Freddie Blow. After his parents divorced when he was about 5, he was raised by his mother and her extended family in Gibsland and attended Shiloh Baptist Church.

Gibsland was a town then of about 1,100 near where fugitive outlaws Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow were shot to death in 1934 by law officers. Gibsland schools were segregated until the late 1960s. Blow was class president from sixth to 12th grade and in his freshman and junior years at Grambling State University, where he graduated magna cum laude in 1991 with a degree in mass communications.

After graduation and marriage to his college sweetheart, he worked as a graphic artist at the Detroit News before taking a job as the New York Times graphics editor in 1994. He stayed with the Times until 2006 when he left to become art director for National Geographic’s magazine. It was around this time that he lost his religion, he told Annie Laurie Gaylor and Dan Barker in October 2024 on “Freethought Matters,” FFRF’s TV talk show: “When you’re touching fossils, the idea that the world is 12,000 years old doesn’t make sense anymore.”

Blow returned to the Times in 2008 as a featured columnist, a position he still holds as of this writing in 2024. He published his memoir “Fire Shut Up In My Bones” in 2014 in which he revealed how he was molested by an older male cousin and then later by an uncle.

In the memoir, he also wrote how after he and his wife Greta divorced, he came out publicly as bisexual. Their children were born four years apart, son Tajh followed by boy-girl twins Ian and Iman. He started raising the children as a single parent when Tajh was 6. (BlackPast, May 16, 2020)

In 2021 he published “The Devil You Know: A Black Manifesto,” in which he advocates people of color moving to states where they can build a political majority. His memoir has been developed into an opera, the first by a Black composer to premiere at the Metropolitan Opera. “The Devil You Know” has been developed into a feature-length HBO documentary.

His columns and broadcast commentary express liberal views on social justice, racial equality, LGBTQ+ issues and national politics. A staunch critic of Donald Trump as president, he joined MSNBC as a political analyst in 2022. He has noted that the percentage of Republicans who accept the theory of evolution has declined precipitously.

“I believe this is a natural result of a long-running ploy by Republican Party leaders to play on the most base convictions of conservative voters in order to solidify their support. Convince people that they’re fighting a religious war for religious freedom, a war in which passion and devotion are one’s weapons against doubt and confusion, and you make loyal soldiers. There has been anti-science propagandizing running unchecked on the right for years, from anti-gay equality misinformation to climate change denials.” (New York Times, Jan. 3, 2014)

He says he’s experienced a personal evolution of sorts. “I have gone from the most devout born-again Christian to a more nebulous, nondoctrinal set of beliefs that do not necessarily align with organized religion. When people ask about my faith, I often reply, ‘unresolved.’ ” (New York Times, Jan. 7, 2011)

Fast forward several years (see featured quote below), and it’s clear he kept evolving. He accepted FFRF’s Emperor Has No Clothes Award at the 2024 national convention in Denver. It’s reserved for public figures who speak out to puncture fairy tales about religion.

PHOTO: Blow at FFRF’s national convention in 2024; photo by Chris Line.

Freedom From Religion Foundation