Early in her career, Jenkins co-hosted one of the first daily public affairs programs in
New York City,
Straight Talk on
WOR-TV; and co-hosted
Positively Black for
WNBC-TV, one of the earliest television programs dedicated to Black issues in the United States. As an African-American television reporter, Jenkins was an anchor and correspondent for WNBC-TV in New York for nearly 25 years. She reported from the floor of national presidential conventions from the 1970s to the 1990s, and from South Africa she reported on the release of
Nelson Mandela from prison and co-produced an Emmy-nominated prime-time special on
apartheid. She hosted
Carol Jenkins Live, her own daily talk show, on
WNYW-TV. With her daughter, Elizabeth Gardner Hines, Jenkins is co-author of
Black Titan: A. G. Gaston and the Making of a Black American Millionaire (2004). A biography of her uncle, a successful Alabama businessman and
civil rights activist, the book won a Best Non-Fiction award from the Black Caucus of the
American Library Association. She was founding president of
Women's Media Center, a non-profit created in 2004 by
Gloria Steinem,
Robin Morgan, and
Jane Fonda to increase coverage and participation of women in media. As president, she conceived the Progressive Women’s Voices program to provide media training for women and girls, and she expanded SheSource, the largest portfolio of women experts in the country. At
FCC hearings she testified on the "crisis in representation" in mainstream media. Every year WMC presents its WMC Carol Jenkins award to women in extraordinary leadership positions. As a pioneering African-American television reporter, Jenkins was an anchor and correspondent for WNBC TV in New York for nearly 25 years. She reported from the floor of national presidential conventions from the 1970s to the 1990s, and from South Africa she reported on the release of
Nelson Mandela from prison and co-produced an Emmy-nominated prime-time special on
apartheid. As past chair and current board member of
Amref Health Africa USA, an arm of the largest health NGO in Africa, she is engaged in efforts to support health programs for African women and girls. Her other board work includes the
Feminist Press at CUNY, the
Veteran Feminists of America, The Steering Committee of the Gloria Steinem Chair at
Rutgers University, the
Anne O'Hare McCormick Journalism Scholarship Board, the Northern Manhattan Arts Alliance, and Certified Humane. ,
Heidi Schreck and Huma Abedin at ERA night after a performance of
Suffs musical in April 2024 Jenkins was co-president and CEO of the
ERA Coalition and the
Fund for Women's Equality, sister organizations dedicated to the passage and enactment of the
Equal Rights Amendment. A board member since the beginning in 2014, she joined the leadership team in December 2018, and left in 2022, replaced by
Zakiya Thomas. The ERACoalition comprises more than two hundred and fifty organizations and leaders across the US, representing people working for equality for women. It provides research, education and advocacy on the issues of constitutional equality, working on the state and federal levels with advocates and legislators. In 2020, the ERA Coalition was supportive of the legislative and advocacy work that brought about the 38th and final state (Virginia) needed for ratification and the
House of Representatives vote to dissolve the time limit on the
Equal Rights Amendment. Jenkins hosts the three-time N.Y. Emmy-nominated interview show
Black America, on
CUNY TV, as of 2021 in its sixth season. She is also executive producer, writer and correspondent of its documentaries, including the
PBS-aired
More Than a Building, A Dream Come True, an award-winning film detailing the creation of the new
National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, DC and ''Conscience of America: Birmingham's Fight for Civil Rights'', a special on the
Birmingham Civil Rights National Monument, which won a national
Telly Award in 2018 and was nominated in the Best Documentary category by the
National Association of Black Journalists. The program has been honored by the New York Association of Black Journalists as Best Talk, and Best Documentary. In 2018, she hosted a limited-edition
Black America podcast with Black women leaders, and was also co-anchor of CUNY TV’s live election-night coverage, which dealt with national as well as local races. In the spring of 2019 and 2020, Jenkins was chosen as a Grove Leader at
Hunter College, leading a semester seminar on Constitutional Equality and working with a cohort of Grove Fellows to produce a virtual gathering on the ERA on campuses across the US. == Honors ==