Debbie Elliott
NPR National Correspondent Debbie Elliott can be heard telling stories from her native South. She covers the latest news and politics, and is attuned to the region's rich culture and history.
For more than two decades, Elliott has been one of NPR's top breaking news reporters. She's covered dozens of natural disasters – including hurricanes Andrew, Katrina and Harvey. She reported on the aftermath of the 2010 Haiti earthquake, introducing NPR listeners to teenage boys orphaned in the disaster, struggling to survive on their own.
Elliott spent months covering the nation's worst man-made environmental disaster, the 2010 BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, documenting its lingering impact on Gulf coast communities and the complex legal battles that ensued. She launched the series "The Disappearing Coast," which examines the oil spill's lasting imprint on a fragile coastline.
She was honored with a 2018 Gracie Award from the Alliance for Women in Media Foundation for crisis coverage, in part for her work covering the deadly white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, and the mass murder of worshippers at a church in Sutherland Springs, Texas. She was part of NPR's teams covering the mass shootings at Charleston's Emanuel AME Church and the Pulse Nightclub in Orlando.
Elliott has followed national debates over immigration, healthcare, abortion, tobacco, voting rights, welfare reform, same-sex marriage, Confederate monuments, criminal justice and policing in America. She examined the obesity epidemic in Mississippi, a shortage of public defenders in Louisiana, a rise in the incarceration of girls in Florida and chronic inhumane conditions at state prisons in Alabama and Mississippi.
A particular focus for Elliott has been exploring how Americans live through the prism of race, culture and history. Her coverage links lessons from the past to the movement for racial justice in America today.
She's looked at the legacy of landmark civil rights events, including the integration of Little Rock's Central High, the assassination of Mississippi NAACP leader Medgar Evers, the Montgomery bus boycott and the voting rights march in Selma, Alabama. She contributed a four-part series on the 1968 assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. in Memphis, Tennessee, which earned a 2019 Gracie Award for documentary.
She was present for the re-opening of civil rights era murder cases, covering trials in the 16th Street Church bombing in Birmingham, the murder of Hattiesburg, Miss., NAACP leader Vernon Dahmer and the killings of three civil rights workers in Neshoba County, Miss.
Elliott has profiled key figures in politics and the arts, including former Attorney General Jeff Sessions, historian John Hope Franklin, Congressman John Lewis, children's book author Eric Carle, musician Trombone Shorty and former Louisiana Governor Edwin Edwards. She covered the funerals of the Queen of Soul Aretha Franklin, and the King of the Blues BB King, and she took listeners along for the second line jazz procession in memory of Fats Domino in New Orleans.
Her stories give a taste of southern culture, from the Nashville hot chicken craze to the traditions of Mardi Gras to the roots of American music at Mississippi's new Grammy Museum. She's highlighted little-known treasures such as North Carolina artist Freeman Vines and his hanging tree guitars, the magical House of Dance and Feathers in New Orleans' Lower 9th ward, a remote Coon Dog Cemetery in north Alabama and the Cajun Christmas tradition of lighting bonfires on the levees of the Mississippi River.
Elliott is a former host of NPR's newsmagazine All Things Considered on the weekends, and is a former Capitol Hill Correspondent. She's an occasional guest host of NPR's news programs and is a contributor to podcasts and live programming.
Elliott was born in Atlanta, grew up in the Memphis area, and is a graduate of the University of Alabama. She lives in south Alabama with her husband, two children and a pet beagle.
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Hurricane Sally left plenty of damage when it hit Alabama on Wednesday. Now, as floodwaters begin to recede, people are trying to pick through the debris and clean up what the storm left behind.
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Sally made landfall in Alabama as a Category 2 hurricane with high winds. Forecasters warned the slow-moving storm may bring catastrophic flooding to parts of Alabama and Florida.
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Sally came ashore as a Category 2 hurricane, pushing a surge of ocean water onto the coast and dumping torrential rain. Forecasters expect the storm to cause dangerous flooding.
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Hurricane Sally is crawling toward the northern Gulf Coast. It's been dumping rain across Florida for days. Now Alabama and Mississippi are feeling its effects.
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Freeman Vines is an African American luthier who creates what have been called "contemporary art sculptures hidden as guitars" out of old wood, some of it from a tree used for a lynching. -
Hundreds of people turned out in Atlanta to say a final goodbye to Congressman John Lewis. He was remembered as a kind and gentle man who spent his life fighting to make positive change.
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Mourners gathered at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta for the funeral of Rep. John Lewis. He was laid to rest after six days of mourning in Alabama, Washington, D.C., and Georgia.
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John Lewis, Sharecroppers' Son, Is Given A Heroes Sendoff In AlabamaPeople from across Alabama turned out to honor the life of Congressman John Lewis. He was born in Alabama and many of his most important civil rights moments happened in the state.
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The body of Congressman John Lewis crossed the Edmund Pettus bridge in Selma, Ala., on Sunday. It was a poignant moment at a hallowed place as the country honors the life of the civil rights icon.
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The U.S. Justice Department says there are unconstitutional conditions in Alabama's prison system. The government alleges guards use excessive force on men incarcerated in the state's prisons.
