Michele Norris, co-host of NPR’s All Things Considered, will be here in conversation with KUSP’s Rick Kleffel to read from/discuss/and answer Q & A’s about her first book, The Grace of Silence.
Named Journalist of the Year in 2009, Michele Norris set out through original reporting to write a book about “the hidden conversation of race” that taking place upon the ascendance of Barack Obama as president of the United States. Starting out with an interview with her own family, Norris discovered a family secret that changed her journalist pursuit into a journey that turned out to be much more personal. Along the way, she discovered how character is forged by both repression and revelation. She learned how silence became a form of self-protection and a means of survival for her parents—strivers determined to create a better life for their children at a time when America was beginning to experiment with racial equality. She also explored where silence plays a part for white Americans who grew up enforcing strict segregation (sometimes through violence) but who now live in a world where integration is the norm.
The Grace of Silence, while told with poetic and personal candor, is also informed by scores of interviews with ordinary Americans leading Norris to make wise observations about evolving attitudes—at once encouraging and disturbing—toward race in America.
Please help us welcome Ms. Norris for a night we’re sure to remember with one of the most known and important voices we hear today.
This event is co-sponsored by:
