Eugene Robinson, a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for the Washington Post, will speak Wednesday, May 1 at 5:30 p.m. in the Nott Memorial.
His talk, "We're Someplace We've Never Been: Race, Diversity and the New World," is part of the Presidential Forum on Diversity series. The lecture is free and open to the public.
In a 25-year career at the Post, Robinson has been city hall reporter, city editor, foreign
correspondent in Buenos Aires and London, foreign editor and assistant managing editor in charge of the paper’s award-winning Style section.
He has written books about race in Brazil and music in Cuba, covered a heavyweight championship fight, witnessed riots in Philadelphia and a murder trial in the deepest Amazon and sat with Presidents and Dictators and the Queen of England.
Since 2005, he has been writing a twice-weekly column picking apart American society and then reassembling it by relying on "energy, curiosity, elegant writing and the wide-ranging experience of a life that took him from childhood in the segregated South—on what they called the “colored” side of the tracks—to the heights of American journalism."
In 2009, he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for his commentary on the 2008 presidential race that resulted in the election of the country's first African-American president.
A member of the National Association of Black Journalists, Robinson is the author of several books. His most recent was 2010's Disintegration, in which he discusses the disintegration of the black community into four distinct sectors, making them ideologically and politically unreliable.
Robinson is a regular contributor to MSNBC.
Preceding the talk at 4:45 p.m. is a President's reception, also open to the public.
The Presidential Forum on Diversity was established in 2006 by President Stephen C. Ainlay to bring in notable speakers on a wide range of topics that promote diversity and inclusiveness.
Previous speakers have included faith leader Eboo Patel, poet Maya Angelou, journalist Soledad O'Brien, law professor Lani Guinier, Broadway star Anthony Rapp, actress Marlee Matlin and activist Morris Dees.