Adrienne Hayward James

Recipient of the 2005 Compass Award

Adrienne Haywood-James is a freelance journalist and photographer. During her seven-plus years writing and photographing for local newspapers, Adrienne has reported extensively for and about the Muslim community here in New York City. Formerly of Muslims Weekly, Adrienne covered rallies, town-hall meetings, cops on the beat, soup kitchens, civil rights and employment, hate-related crime, immigration matters, women’s issues, and international affairs. Those stories shed light on the everyday lives and issues of Muslims who struggle, fight and remain rooted in the city they call home.

During her five years at Muslims Weekly, Adrienne won an Independent Press Association Fellowship in 2004. There, she developed and wrote feature articles reflecting the community’s diversity of ideas concerning art, local and foreign politics, civil rights, schools and education, domestic violence, sexual orientation issues, and America’s war with Iraq. Later, she won an honorable mention at an IPA-NY competition for her article, Parents, Advocates Cheer, Jeer High-Stakes Tests and Ending of Social Promotion. That same year, Ms. Haywood-James earned Muslim Weekly’s “Reporter of the Year.”

Adrienne holds a B.F.A in Fine Arts from Brooklyn College, part of the City University of New York. She has taken and continues to take courses in the field of photography and writing. Currently, her photographs regularly appear in The Chief, a widely read independent weekly newspaper, which reports on citywide labor issues.