Angela Dews spent a summer at Columbia University J School in 1969, after graduating from Howard University. Ford Foundation funded the program that prepared “members of minority groups” for news jobs in response to the 1968 Kerner Commission report that identified their absence as one reason for the1967 riots.

She worked at Newsday with publisher Bill Moyers covering the Black Arts movement, student activism, civil rights, and black consciousness. She moved from journalism to politics and when one of her candidates Ruth Messinger won, Angela went to work for the Manhattan Borough President.

She moved to NYU’s Wagner School of Public Service as acting ED and editor for the Women of Color Policy Network and Roundtable of Institutions of People of Color.

She has fictionalized those experiences in Harlem Hit & Run, a murder mystery full of the details of how we were in the 1990s. Harlem is one complex character. 

Angela also edited a collection of real stories about the fierce practice of urban Buddhism. Still, in the City. Finding Peace of Mind in the Midst of Urban Chaos –When a New York City subway becomes a mobile temple, when Los Angeles traffic becomes a vehicle for awakening, when a Fifth Avenue sidewalk becomes a gauntlet through craving, generosity and sorrow. 

She now practices and teaches Buddhism and meditation, including with a group in Harlem that started in her living room, Harlem Insight.