FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC
Tomorrow evening at 5:30 PM at the Bass Lecture Hall located at the LBJ School for Public Affairs, the University of Texas at Austin will host one of the most influential journalists and public intellectuals of our time. Nikole Hannah-Jones will speak at Bass Lecture Hall, bringing her powerful voice on history, democracy, and racial justice to campus at a moment when these conversations feel more urgent than ever.
Hannah-Jones is best known for creating The 1619 Project, the landmark initiative published by The New York Times that reframed the story of the United States by centering the legacy of slavery and the contributions of Black Americans to the nation’s democratic ideals. For this work, she received the Pulitzer Prize for Commentary in 2020, helping spark a national conversation about history, memory, and the meaning of democracy itself.
Notably, the book associated with this project—The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story—holds a unique and troubling distinction in Texas. Under Texas Senate Bill 3, it is the only specific book referenced in statute language as material that cannot be used to fulfill curriculum requirements in Texas public schools.
At a time when books are being challenged, curricula scrutinized, and honest discussions of race and history increasingly politicized, Hannah-Jones has remained steadfast in her commitment to rigorous historical inquiry and public dialogue. Her work reminds us that democracy depends not on comfortable myths, but on our willingness to confront the past honestly.
Tomorrow’s event will also feature two powerful voices from our own community.
Joining Hannah-Jones is Cameron Samuels, a youth leader and master’s student at the LBJ School of Public Affairs whose advocacy for intellectual freedom and student rights has resonated nationally. Samuels represents a generation of young organizers who understand that the fight over knowledge—what can be taught, read, and debated—is inseparable from the future of democracy.
Also participating is Karma Chávez, chair of the Mexican American and Latino Studies Program at UT Austin and a leading scholar whose work examines migration, social movements, and rhetorical strategies of resistance. Chávez’s scholarship reminds us that the struggles over voice, belonging, and justice have always been deeply connected to the power of narrative.
Together, these three speakers—together with Jonathan Friedman of PEN America as their moderator—represent something important: the intersection of journalism, scholarship, and youth activism in the ongoing struggle over how we tell the story of this country.
Events like this matter. Universities should be places where difficult histories can be explored, debated, and understood—not silenced. They are spaces where students encounter ideas that challenge them to think more deeply about the society they inhabit and the future they hope to build.
If you are in Austin, consider attending. Conversations about democracy, truth, and historical memory are not abstract academic exercises—they are part of the living work of citizenship.
And tomorrow evening, that conversation will unfold right here on the Forty Acres.
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