Join Lawrence Jackson, Ph.D., for a reading and discussion of his 2022 memoir Shelter: A Black Tale of Homeland, Baltimore, which is at once a nuanced biography of an American city and a lyrical memoir-in-essays, exploring the themes and subjects that animate Jackson’s life: the joys and responsibilities of care-taking and homeownership, the grounding structure of faith and religious tradition, Black fatherhood and the striving for upward mobility, and a wrestling with injustice and the undertow of history.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Lawrence Jackson, Ph.D., is Bloomberg Distinguished Professor of English and History at the Johns Hopkins University and the author of the award-winning books Chester B. Himes: A Biography (W.W. Norton 2017), The Indignant Generation: A Narrative History of African American Writers and Critics(Princeton 2010), My Father’s Name: A Black Virginia Family after the Civil War (Chicago 2012) and Ralph Ellison: Emergence of Genius, 1913-1952 (Wiley 2002). His most recent book is Hold It Real Still: Clint Eastwood, Race, and the Cinema of the American West (Johns Hopkins University Press 2022). He earned a Ph.D. in English and American literature at Stanford University, and has held fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Humanities Center, and the William J. Fulbright program. In addition to his writing and research, Jackson launched and now serves as director of the Billie Holiday Center for the Liberation Arts, an initiative that showcases and preserves the unique arts, history, and culture of Baltimore.