Longtime political journalist Gwen Ifill died Monday at the age of 61 after a battle with cancer. Ifill was the longtime host of Washington Week on PBS, and co-anchor of the PBS NewsHour. She also wote the best-selling book, The Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama, published as Barack Obama was inaugurated as president in 2009.
Ifill discussed the book with Illinois Public Radio’s David Inge in an interview in March of 2009. In that conversation, Ifill said that her entire career up to that point served as research for The Breakthrough.