Race in America: Colson Whitehead

Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden talks to two-time Pulitzer Prize winner and National Book Festival veteran (2009, 2012, 2016 and this year) Colson Whitehead about the need for stories from our past to help us contend with the present—especially at moments of great change.

Please join us to watch this presentation as it premieres with closed captions on both the Library's Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/libraryofcongress and the Library's YouTube site at https://www.youtube.com/loc/. The presentation will be available for viewing afterwards at those sites and on the Library of Congress website at loc.gov.

This event is part of the National Book Festival Presents series “Hear You, Hear Me.” The series is named for a phrase from the Langston Hughes poem “Theme for English B”:

But I guess I’m what
I feel and see and hear, Harlem, I hear you.
hear you, hear me—we two—you, me, talk on this page.

This new online series, a continuation of the themes raised in our June 5 program, “Carla Hayden and Lonnie Bunch: Cultural Institutions at Times of Social Unrest,” features Hayden in conversation with some of the nation’s great literary figures. These conversations will highlight what poetry and literature can offer the nation as it contends with foundational issues of social justice.

#racialjustice #race #socialjustice #colsonwhitehead