Journalist Eugene Robinson explores racial history through his family story

Morning Edition executive producer Leah Fleming moderates a conversation with Eugene Robinson, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and former op-ed columnist for The Washington Post, about his new memoir, “Freedom Lost, Freedom Won: A Personal History of America.” The book tells our nation’s torturous racial history through Robinson’s own family’s story, from his great-grandfather’s freedom from slavery to his own coming-of-age during the Civil Rights Movement and reaching today’s Black Lives Matter movement, pushing us to consider how far the nation has come — willingly or not — and how far it still has to go.

Copies of the book will be available to purchase from our bookstore partner Frugal Bookstore and Robinson will sign following the conversation.

About “Freedom Lost, Freedom Won”

On March 27, 1829, a wealthy white planter and entrepreneur named Richard Fordham purchased four enslaved African Americans from a woman named Isabella Perman. One of them was journalist Eugene Robinson’s great-great-grandfather, a boy called Harry.

Starting from this transaction, which took place in Charleston, South Carolina, “Freedom Lost, Freedom Won” brings to life 200 years of our nation’s history through the eyes of the remarkable family that Harry founded. Assigned a formal name — Henry Fordham — and put to work as a blacksmith, he achieved his own freedom a decade before the Civil War. He was there when victorious Union troops marched into Charleston in 1865, ending slavery and guaranteeing liberty for Black people — only on paper, though, and only for a time.

Robinson traces the arc of his familial lineage through the repeated cycles in which African Americans have fought their way upward toward freedom and opportunity, been forced back down again, and renewed their determined climb.

From his great-great-grandfather’s achievement in becoming a “free person of color” before emancipation to his great-grandfather’s Reconstruction-era success, from his father’s odyssey of the Great Migration to his own coming-of-age during the Civil Rights Movement, Robinson delves into a rich archive of Black narratives, arguing that we still have a long way to go before it is possible to speak of a “post-racial America.”

Setting his extensive research within the larger historical context, Robinson provides both an indictment of structural racism and an illustration of how it has been fought and, at times, courageously overcome. “Freedom Lost, Freedom Won” tells our country’s tortuous racial history through Robinson’s family’s story of struggle and survival, pushing us to consider how far the nation has come — willingly or not — and how far it still has to go.

Ways To Save

WBUR’s Legacy Circle, Murrow Society, Sustainers and Members save $5.00 on tickets to this event. To apply the discount to your ticket purchase online, you’ll need to enter a promo code. You can get your code by emailing [email protected].

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