This fall’s Trinity University Maverick lecturer will draw on his own family’s connections to slavery and the Civil Rights Movement, placing it in the timeline of African American history throughout the ages, a topic that aligns with the lecture series’ focus on civic discourse. Pulitzer Prize winner Eugene Robinson will present “Freedom Lost, Freedom Won: A Personal History of America” at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, October 1, at Stieren Theater on Trinity’s campus.
The William and Salomé Scanlan Foundation has sponsored the Maverick Lecture Series for nearly 20 years as a way to honor the legacy of Maury Maverick Jr., an outspoken San Antonio lawyer and former Texas legislator whose liberal perspective was respected across the state. Speakers are selected for their commitment to the issues that shaped Maverick’s place in American civic discourse, including challenges to constitutional liberty, defense of the First Amendment, and questions of poverty and race.
For his lecture, Robinson will draw on themes from his latest book, Freedom Lost, Freedom Won: A Personal History of America, published in February of this year. In the book, Robinson uses his own family history to illustrate how African American history is a key element of the American story, all the way from his great-great-grandfather’s liberation from slavery through his own coming of age during the Civil Rights Movement and beyond.
Robinson grew up in Orangeburg, South Carolina, the location of the “Orangeburg Massacre,” a 1968 incident in which police fired on students protesting a segregated bowling alley and killed three unarmed young men. That happened within sight of Robinson’s family home. He went to Orangeburg High School, where he was one of a handful of Black students on the previously all-white campus. In college, he became the first Black student to be named co-editor-in-chief of the University of Michigan’s award-winning student newspaper.
In addition to being an award-winning journalist, Robinson is a political analyst for MSNBC and author of four books. In 2009, during his time as a columnist for The Washington Post, Robinson won the Pulitzer Prize in Commentary for his columns on the 2008 presidential race that resulted in the election of former President Barack Obama, the nation’s first Black president.
Tickets will be available to the general public on September 11.