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DC resident and author, Cheryl A. Head will be in conversation with renowned journalist Kojo Nnamdi to discuss Head's celebrated novel, Time’s Undoing.
Join DC resident and author, Cheryl A. Head for a conversation with renowned journalist Kojo Nnamdi to discuss Head's celebrated novel, Time’s Undoing. Nominated for the Hurston-Wright Legacy Award, the Los Angeles Times Book Award, and the Strand Critics Award, Time’s Undoing is structured in two timelines, with two protagonists:
In 2019, 28-year-old Meghan McKenzie, a newspaper reporter covering the Black lives Matter beat, investigates the murder of a Black man by police in 1929 Birmingham, Alabama. That man is her great-grandfather. Her goal: to demonstrate that unregulated police shootings of Black citizens is a centuries-old problem. Her investigation leads to new clues, new-found allies, and new secrets that some in Birmingham want to keep buried.
In 1929, 28-year-old master carpenter, Robert Harrington has moved to Birmingham to help create the new mansions being built during the city’s steel boom. None as the Magic City, there are strict Jim Crow laws and codes that guide the daily lives of Blacks. And there is an entrenched KKK presence. Robert, with his fancy car and light-skinned wife draws the attention of the police and the Klan, and he can’t escape either as he lives out the last months of his life in Birmingham.
Inspired by George Floyd's untimely murder five years ago this month by a Minneapolis, Minnesota police officer which then triggered a global social justice movement, Time's Undoing explores issues of race, police brutality, and social justice.
Join us for a timely conversation on Head's inspiration for the novel and the important issues the novel tackles.
The program will occur in the New Books area on the first floor of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Library. Registration is encouraged but not required.
This program is a part of Our City, Our Stories, a series that features informative programs about local government and governance and educate residents on how they can be involved in the process, while also presenting cultural programs featuring authors, artists, and subject matter experts from Washington, DC.
Cheryl A. Head is an American author, and former television producer, organizer, and broadcast executive. She is the author of the award-winning Charlie Mack Motown mysteries, whose female PI protagonist is queer and Black. She is also author of Time's Undoing published in 2023. Head is a two-time Anthony Award nominee, a two-time Lambda Literary Award finalist, a Los Angeles Times Book Prize Finalist, an Agatha Award Finalist, a three-time Next Generation Indie Book Award finalist, and winner of the Golden Crown Literary Society's Ann Bannon Popular Choice Award, and an IPPY Silver medal.
Kojo Nnamdi is host of The Politics Hour with Kojo Nnamdi, a live talk show produced by WAMU that airs Fridays at noon. Nnamdi joined WAMU in 1998 to host Public Interest (formerly known as The Derek McGinty Show). In 2002, the show was renamed as The Kojo Nnamdi Show, which he hosted until the show ended in April 2021.
A longtime D.C. resident, Nnamdi emigrated to the United States in 1968 to attend college and explore the civil rights movement. From 1985 to 2011, he hosted Evening Exchange, a public affairs television program broadcast by WHUT-TV at Howard University. From 1973 to 1985, Nnamdi worked at WHUR-FM, where he served as news editor and then news director, producing the award-winning local news program The Daily Drum.
AGE GROUP: | Seniors | Adults |
EVENT TYPE: | Lecture | Educational Program | Civic Engagement | Author Talk |
