In His Last Piece for ‘The New York Times,' Charles Blow Said He “Never Wanted to Be a Writer”

The last column Charles Blow wrote for The New York Times was his farewell to the outlet he had been contributing to for more than 15 years. He was working at the outlet as a graphics editor and later the graphics director. Everything changed when he told his executive editor at the time that he wanted to produce charts for the Opinion section.

Charles was not nearly as confident in his writing ability as he was in his talent as a designer, which shifted in 2009 when he wrote about "two 11-year-old boys, one in Massachusetts, the other in Georgia, who had hanged themselves just 10 days apart after both had endured homophobic bullying." As a Black bisexual man, he understood this kind of abuse. Losing Charles as an op-ed writer is deeply disappointing. He has a gift. Why is he leaving the NYT? Here's what we know.

On Jan. 17, 2025, Katie Robinson, the media reporter for The New York Times, posted screenshots about a few Times employees who were leaving the outlet. The images were from an email sent by Opinion chief Katie Kingsbury, who wrote that she believes strongly in "change, renewal, and building a team that meets big moments." She went on to say that with these departures, she plans on "spending the coming months looking closely at new voices" that "meet this extraordinary moment in America."

Kingsbury then highlighted some of the work Charles did with the newspaper, pointing out the fact that he brought people into the lives of many different Americans, "from Muslim-Americans in Michigan during last year's election to families devastated by gun violence." In his final column, Charles said he never wanted to be a writer but growing into himself in front of his readers was one of the great honors of his life, writing, "I heard the music, and I hope that you could occasionally hear it through me."

Charles will still be a political analyst for MSNBC but starting in the 2025-2026 academic year, he'll be at Harvard after receiving the inaugural Langston Hughes fellowship which is hosted by the W. E. B. Du Bois Research Institute at the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research.

In a post to Instagram, Charles said he will "finally get a chance to work on two books that have been tickling my brain, and do so with the help of the unmatched Harvard research team." It's hard to believe, but Charles was at The New York Times for 30 years, and while he is grateful for that time, he was ready for a change. "Harvard is the beginning of that," he wrote. He also hinted at a couple of projects that were still a secret. Charles can't wait to share them, and we are very ready to receive them.