In Conversation: Danny Lyon, with Sarah Conway

Join photographer, filmmaker, writer, and UChicago alumnus Danny Lyon as he speaks with Chicago-based, Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter Sarah Conway. Co-presented by the Chicago Center on Democracy, the evening includes a special viewing of photographs by Lyon in the Smart's permanent collection, as well as light refreshments. Free, RSVP highly encouraged with first-come, first-served seating.

About Danny Lyon: In 1962 Danny Lyon was a third-year history and philosphy student at the University of Chicago. He was also “the campus photographer.” After hearing on the radio that demonstrations had begun in Cairo, Illinois, he hitchhiked there. In Cairo he met and photographed John Lewis, then travelled to Albany, Georgia where he was briefly jailed. That Fall, Lyon had his first in the New Dorm Lounge and brought SNCC Chairman Chuck McDew and  Bernice Reagan and the Freedom Singers onto campus to spread the word. As SNCC’s first staff photographer, Lyon exposed a hundred thirty rolls of Tri-X film in the deep south, which today remains a definitive record of the Southern Civil Rights Movement. In 1965, he joined the Chicago Outlaw Motorcycle Club and in 1968 he published The Bikeriders. By then he had moved to Texas where he had managed to get inside the vast Texas Pr*son system with his cameras, and produce his book, Conversations with the Dead. Although by 1972 all his early books had been remaindered, today they are all back in print.  Also a writer, in 2020 Karma published American Blood a collection of his writing. The first essay was from The Bug, a 1961 University of Chicago publication. Eventually Lyon received the Missouri Honor medal in journalism, Guggenheims in film and photography, and NEA grants in film. In 2016, he had a major retrospective at the Whitney Museum in New York, called Message to the Future. Lyon is an active blogger at bleakbeauty.com and @Dannylyonphotos2 on IG. He lives in New Mexico and New York City.   

About Sarah Conway: Sarah Conway is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter and social realist filmmaker based in Chicago who uses public records, data analysis, and building lasting community relationships to challenge traditional narratives and bring new stories to light. Sarah’s reporting examines how government failures and public health crises, such as labor exploitation, police misconduct, and gender-based violence, disproportionately impact marginalized communities, who often hold the insight and solutions to these same issues.

Sarah is known for co-authoring Missing in Chicago, a Pulitzer Prize-winning, seven-part investigation into the Chicago Police Department’s mishandling of missing persons cases, particularly those involving Black women and girls. The investigation, published in partnership with local and national outlets, was based on a review of over one million records and extensive community engagement, including public reading groups and direct support for families. The series led to significant institutional reforms, including legislation, police policy changes, and a City Council hearing, which helped families receive answers and justice.

Sarah is the 2025 Annenberg Visiting Chair of Journalism at Notre Dame University and a University of Southern California Center for Health Journalism Data Fellow. She is in post-production on her first co-directed short film, Dani Y Jorge, a blended narrative film about a married couple completing their last day labor job before their deportation hearing. Sarah is also co-host of Perceptions of the Real, a live-writing show on 105.5 FM Lumpen Radio, and is an artist-in-residence at the Chicago Art Department in Pilsen, where she co-curates CINEMANITA, a public film club that builds community over great movies.

You can learn more about her work at sarahanneconway.com. 

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