Lowell Lecture
Robert Samuels: His Name Is George Floyd: One Man's Life and the Struggle for Racial Justice
Date & Time
Sept. 13, 2023 at 7 p.m.
Location
Boston College - Robsham Theater
Boston College - Robsham Theater
Campanella Way Chestnut Hill, MA 02467
Driving Directions
Speaker(s)
Robert Samuels
Presenting Organization
Topics
Contact
Avner Goldstein (avner.goldstein@bc.edu, )
Award-winning national political enterprise reporter and staff writer for The New Yorker, Robert Samuels is the lead author of the highly-anticipated and Pulitzer Prize-winning landmark biography His Name Is George Floyd: One Man's Life and the Struggle for Racial Justice.
This stunning new work is a poignant exploration of the life of George Floyd and how his tragic experience brought about a global movement for change. It metaphorically uses George Floyd's story to put into context America's deeply troubled history of institutional racism. Inspired by The Washington Post's award-winning six-part series “George Floyd’s America,” the book delves deeper into how systemic racism influenced Floyd's life and legacy. Drawing on over 400 interviews, including with friends and family who knew him best and those who were with him when he died, it provides insight into who he was, how inequality and insufferable systemic pressures changed him, and how a man who simply wanted to breathe ended up touching the world.
During his 12-year tenure as a highly-regarded reporter for The Washington Post, Robert Samuels traveled to 41 states and three countries, chronicling how political discussions in the nation's capital affect the lives of everyday Americans. He has also been a guest essayist and serves as the Post's go-to commentator on figure skating.
His work has been a part of teams that have won the George Polk Award, the Peabody Award, and the National Association of Black Journalists Award for Investigative Reporting. He has also been a finalist for the Toner Prize for National Political Reporting and the Livingston Award for Young Journalists, and he has won several statewide awards for his work while at The Miami Herald. As an adjunct faculty member at Wake Forest University, Mr. Samuels teaches a seminar on the history of race reporting and its impact on democracy.
Cosponsored by the Boston College Forum on Racial Justice in America and the African and African Diaspora Studies Program.
All events are free and open to the public. Please RSVP at bit.ly/lhs-robertsamuels to reserve seating.