Memphis Reads 2023 Series: “Writers’ Talks” w/ Robert Samuels and Toluse Olorunnipa
Authors Robert Samuels and Toluse Olorunnipa will be in Memphis at several Memphis Reads events, including speaking engagements at Christian Brothers University on October 25th, Rhodes College on October 26th, and a visit to a Memphis- Shelby County high school as well. Memphis Reads partners will also host parallel events, giving multiple points of access to the topics addressed in His Name is George Floyd. All events will be free and open to the public.
His Name is George Floyd tells the story of a beloved figure from Houston’s housing projects as he faced the stifling systemic pressures that come with being a Black man in America. Placing his narrative within the context of the country’s enduring legacy of institutional racism, this deeply reported account examines Floyd’s family roots in slavery and sharecropping, the segregation of his schools, the overpolicing of his community amid a wave of mass incarceration, and the callous disregard toward his struggle with addiction—putting today’s inequality into uniquely human terms. Drawing upon hundreds of interviews with Floyd’s closest friends and family, his elementary school teachers and varsity coaches, civil rights icons, and those in the highest seats of political power, Washington Post reporters Robert Samuels and Toluse Olorunnipa offer a poignant and moving exploration of George Floyd’s America, revealing how a man who simply wanted to breathe ended up touching the world.
His Name Is George Floyd won the 2023 Pulitzer Prize in Nonfiction; was a finalist for the National Book Award and Los Angeles Times Book Prize; finalist for the J. Anthony Lukas Prize; A BCALA 2023 Honor Nonfiction Award Winner.
Memphis Reads was created to give students a common academic experience and to connect them with the campus community, as well as the larger Memphis community. Having students and faculty members read the same book provides them with numerous opportunities to discuss it throughout the school year — and by spreading the program city-wide, it provides the same opportunity for our colleagues at other schools and for the general community.
For more information on Memphis Reads, please contact Justin Brooks (Director of the CBU Center for Community Engagement) at jbrook13@cbu.edu or (901) 321-3537, or Ms. Kirbi Tucker at ktucker1@cbu.edu or (901) 321-4483.
