Banks honored with Lifetime Achievement Award at 75th-anniversary conference
When Adelle Banks first went to work at Religion News Service (RNS) in January 1995, some of the top faith-related headlines included U.S. District Judge James Ware rejecting an attempt to keep the city of San Jose, California, from unveiling a statue of the Aztec god Quetzalcoatl and leaders of several predominantly Black denominations committing to raising $5 million to assist the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in its campaign to wipe out its deficit.
The RNS Editor at the time, Joan Connell, thought Banks was up to the task of covering such a wide array of religion news in her role reporting on evangelicals, women and minorities.
“Adelle Banks is a sharp, focused and insightful journalist,” she said in a press release announcing Banks’ appointment. “She writes with intelligence and sophistication about one of the most significant trends in American religion – the tremendous surge of interest in evangelical Christianity," Connell said.
Almost three decades later, Banks’ contributions to the world of religion news continue. And she is still writing about women — particularly women of color — and evangelical denominations like the Southern Baptist Convention for RNS, one of the longest-running independent sources of religion news.
For her contributions to the beat and her long-term commitment to RNA and service to its members, Banks will be honored with the 2024 William A. Reed Lifetime Achievement Award at the Religion News Association’s 75th Anniversary Annual Conference, April 18–20, 2024, in Pittsburgh.
The annual prize was created in 2001 and its namesake, William A. Reed, was the first Black president of the RNA, serving from 1976-78. He was also the first Black journalist to work full time for The Tennessean in Nashville, and one of the first Black reporters on the religion beat. Reed died in 1991.
Before Banks would go on to her long-term success at RNS, she started her reporting career for the Binghamton Press & Sun-Bulletin in south-central New York in 1984. At the time, Banks said she was interested in religion but did not imagine it would become her beat. “I didn’t have religion on my radar,” she said.
But here and there, she picked up the occasional religion story, especially around holidays like Christmas, Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah. The first major non-holiday-related story Banks wrote was about “the biggest little church” in Binghamton — Mt. Nebo Church of God in Christ — during Black History Month in 1985. The two-and-a-half column piece provided intimate, textured detail of Sunday worship at the small church as well as pointed to its wider impact through revivals and gospel concerts.
It was while at the Press & Sun-Bulletin that Banks befriended Sara Hobson, who recalls the days when she and Banks were both reporters at the small-town paper. From the start, Hobson noticed Banks’ diligent research and meticulous fact-checking.
“I noticed her attention to detail the first time I was a passenger in her car. She stopped for gas, and then pulled a small spiral notebook from the glove box to record the precise number of gallons of fuel she had purchased and the miles on the odometer,” Hobson said. “This scrupulous attention to detail is reflected daily in Adelle’s reporting,” she said.
Hobson also noted Banks’ capacity for empathy when called to report on tragedy. She recalls a quiet September evening a few months after Banks was hired when word came into the newsroom that a prominent local businessman had been killed during a break-in at his home. Hobson and Banks were sent in the company car, a dilapidated Chevy Chevette, to cover the crime.
“This was not my first homicide investigation, so I peppered the rookie with the who, what, when, where and how facts that we would need to gather as we drove,” Hobson said, “but Adelle was quiet, and then said she was thinking about this family, which had just lost a husband and a father.
“At that moment, I understood what Adelle had known from the start. This was a family, one that had suffered a tragic loss. That simple lesson in empathy remained with me throughout my reporting days,” she said.
Hobson and Banks went on to report together at the Syracuse Herald-Journal. There, Banks started out covering towns and schools, but sat across from the religion reporter and got intrigued.
In Syracuse, Banks distinctly remembers working on a project ahead of the establishment of Martin Luther King Jr. Day as a federal holiday in 1986. Interviewing civil rights activists like Andrew Young, C.T. Vivian and John Lewis, her stories ended up with a big spread. “Their words were prophetic,” Banks said. “They warned against the holiday becoming more about shopping and sales than civil rights.”
That project set her on a course for almost forty years, doing projects on Black history and religion. Along the way, she covered the Rhode Island town of East Greenwich for The Providence Journal (where she worked with legendary religion reporter Richard Dujardin). She then moved to The Orlando Sentinel, covering Campus Crusade for Christ, Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker, and Central Florida’s Black churches, and reporting from the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church General Conference, gaining key sources she still calls on to this day.
Across four decades, Banks covered a swath of stories, from alternative worship services and programs for people with dementia to King’s ongoing legacy among sanitation workers on the 50th anniversary of his assassination in Memphis, Tennessee. Along the way, Banks interviewed Desmond Tutu, Jerry Falwell and Jesse Jackson, and covered events featuring Billy Graham, Jeremiah Wright, and Bono. She also enjoyed covering the intersection of faith and baseball, including when Pope Benedict XVI celebrated Mass with 46,000 at the newly built Nationals Park in Washington in 2008. “It was stunning to see the baseball park transformed, with everything bathed in white,” she said, “to see a place known for secular gatherings turned ‘holy.’”
Reflecting on her twenty-nine years with RNS — almost one-third of the outlet’s existence — she also noted how so many gatherings on the National Mall in Washington, from the March for Life to the Promise Keepers and from the Million Man March led by Louis Farrakhan to the Reason Rally led by prominent American atheists, reminded her that almost every place in the nation, and every story, has a religion angle to it.
Banks also noted that in her time on the beat, she watched it go from “Protestant-Catholic-Jew to Zoroastrians-atheists-and-beyond.”
Despite the honor of a Lifetime Achievement Award from the RNA and one from the Washington Association of Black Journalists in 2022, Banks said she has no plans to call it quits anytime soon. “There are too many stories to write,” she said, “and so many facets to religion to explore!”
Dawn Araujo-Hawkins, RNA Vice-President and one of Banks’ mentees, said of all the stories Banks wrote, she particularly respects Banks’ commitment to telling Black people’s stories.
“The fact that every Black History Month, she can post a daily thread of the relevant stories she's reported—just that past year!—speaks volumes about her work,” she said.
On being mentored by Banks, Araujo-Hawkins said when she was just starting her career, she would call Banks for advice on everything from salary negotiations to navigating office politics. “She always took the time to listen and to share her wisdom,” she said.
“Anyone who has spent time with Adelle knows that not only is she a top tier reporter, she is also an incredible human being,” Araujo-Hawkins said. “Adelle is thoughtful, caring and genuine. She has a natural inclination to help people, both professionally and personally.”
For these reasons and more, RNA is pleased to award Banks for both her contributions to its community and to the wider religion beat at its 75th-anniversary banquet on April 20, 2024, at The Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh.