2024 Salon Special Guests

BRAD SNYDER

A Georgetown Law professor and Guggenheim fellow, Brad Snyder teaches constitutional law, sports law, and twentieth century American legal history and has written books and law review articles about the history of the Supreme Court. His forthcoming book, You Can’t Kill a Man Because of the Books He Reads: Angelo Herndon’s Fight for Free Speech (Norton, Feb. 4, 2025), tells the story of Angelo Herndon, a Black communist convicted of attempting to incite insurrection in 1933 and sentenced to 18 to 20 years on a Georgia chain, and the people who rallied to his cause and helped set him free. The Supreme Court heard Herndon’s case twice and in 1937 reversed his conviction on free speech and assembly grounds. The Herndon case reveals the importance of free speech and peaceable assembly in a functioning democracy.

ELYSE GENDERSON

Elyse started her career in the wine industry directing PR and marketing campaigns for top wine and spirits brands in New York City. There, she planned and executed the Women in Wine Leadership Symposium with The Winebow Group, which gathered female industry leaders with the goal of empowering women in the wine business. She’s a Diploma candidate with the Wine and Spirits Education Trust (WSET) and holds the Level 3 Advanced Award in Wines. As the 4th generation at Schneider’s of Capitol Hill, she curates our wine imports portfolio, manages our historic retail storefront, and consults with clients focusing on wine education, cellar curation and acquisition. Please visit her at Schneider's to discover wines you'll love!

JULIE DAVIS

Julie Hirschfeld Davis is a currently the congressional editor for the New York Times and a political analyst for CNN. She was previously a White House correspondent. She has covered politics from Washington for 21 years, joining the Times in 2014 as a White House correspondent after stints at Bloomberg News, the Associated Press, the Baltimore Sun, and Congressional Quarterly. She is a regular political analyst at CNN and has also appeared on MSNBC. In 2009, she was awarded the Everett McKinley Dirksen Award for Distinguished Reporting of Congress. In 2018, Davis appeared in the Showtime documentary, The Fourth Estate, which focused on the Times’ coverage of the first year of the Trump administration. Her book, Border Wars: Inside Trump’s Assault on Immigration, co-written with Michael Shear, was published in October 2019. 

KOJO NNAMDI

A longtime D.C. resident, Kojo Nnamdi is a native of Guyana who brings a global perspective and deep knowledge of our region to the news and politics of the day. He is best known for The Kojo Nnamdi Show which aired for 23 years on WAMU, the NPR member station in Washington, DC. He is currently the host of The Politics Hour with Kojo Nnamdi which airs each Friday at noon. Along with resident analyst, Tom Sherwood, they maintain a vital forum for the public to engage with and hold elected public officials accountable. They host frank, lively discussions about the policies and politics affecting the people of D.C., Maryland and Virginia. In 2003, the Library of Congress selected Nnamdi as the keynote speaker for African American History Month, and in 2001, he was honored as a civil rights hero by the National Council for Community Justice. In 2005, he was named a “Washingtonian of the Year” by Washingtonian magazine. Nnamdi has chaired the board of the Public Access Corporation of Washington, D.C., since 1997. He is also active in Guyaid, an organization devoted to the welfare of children in Guyana. In 2014 he was inducted into the Society of Professional Journalists D.C. chapter’s Hall of Fame, and in 2018, he was inducted into the D.C. Hall of Fame Society. The Kojo Nnamdi Show won numerous awards, including multiple PRNDI and AP honors, as well as the National Association of

Black Broadcasters Salute to Excellence award.

MARK SHERMAN

Mark has covered the Supreme Court for The Associated Press since 2006, and has been with AP since 2001. He has previously written about the Justice Department, health care and national politics for more than 35 years as a reporter based in Washington and Atlanta. Earlier in his professional life, Mark worked for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and, briefly, was a Foreign Service officer. He was chairman of the Hill Havurah's Board of Directors for many years.

TOM SHERWOOD 

Tom Sherwood is a veteran journalist of 60 years with experience in newspapers, television, radio and social media (@tomsherwood). A native of Atlanta, Georgia, Tom since 2009 has been the resident political analyst for the WAMU 88.5 Politics Hour with host Kojo Nandi, airing at noon on Fridays. The program features in-depth interviews with major political personalities and covers regional politics in Washington, Virginia and Maryland as well as national politics that affect this region. Tom also is a contributing writer to The Washington City Paper and occasional guest lecturer. He is co-author with Harry Jaffe of Dream City - Race, Power and the Decline of Washington, DC (Simon & Schuster)- editions in 1994 and 2014. Tom formerly worked for 28 years as the principal political reporter for NBC4 television here in Washington before semi-retiring in 2018.