James Forman Jr.
Pulitzer Prize-winning author James Forman Jr. will be the keynote speaker at the inaugural Roger Wilkins Lecture, to be held on George Mason University’s Fairfax Campus at the Mason Innovation Exchange (MIX) on Oct. 25.
The lecture starts at 4:30 p.m. and is open to the public.
Forman, a Yale Law School professor and former Supreme Court clerk, was the recipient of this year’s Pulitzer Prize in General Nonfiction for his book, “Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America.” Prior to joining the faculty at Yale, he was a public defender in Washington, D.C., taught at Georgetown University Law School and cofounded the Maya Angelou Charter School in Washington, D.C., in 1999 for students who have been impacted by the criminal justice system.
A friend of the late Wilkins and the son of civil rights activists, Forman believes the over-incarceration of young black men is the preeminent civil rights issue of our day.
Wilkins, who died in 2017 at age 85, was a Robinson Professor at Mason for 19 years, following a standout career as a journalist and civil rights activist. He served Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, becoming the nation’s first African American assistant attorney general in 1966. Wilkins was later among the first African American editorial writers at both the Washington Post and the New York Times. His powerful editorials about the Watergate scandal helped him earn a share of The Post’s 1973 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service.
Mason honored Wilkins last October when it renamed the Johnson Center North Plaza to Wilkins Plaza.
Fellow Robinson Professor and Pulitzer Prize winner Steven Pearlstein and Mason President Ángel Cabrera were among Wilkins’ many friends and former colleagues who helped raise $70,000 to fund the annual lecture series in his honor. Additional contributions came from the Sandler Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the New York Times and the Washington Post.
The lecture is officially sponsored by Mason’s Philosophy, Politics and Economics Program, a joint effort between the Schar School of Policy and Government and the College of Humanities and Social Sciences that is led by Schar School associate professor Matt Scherer.
Forman will sign copies of his book following the lecture.