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The War Within a War

The Black Struggle in Vietnam & at Home

Enjoy an evening conversation with award-winning author and journalist Wil Haygood as he discusses his newest book, The War Within: The Black Struggle in Vietnam and At Home.

  For reasonable accommodations, please contact the Center for Accessibility at 202-727-2142 or DCPLaccess@dc.gov. For ASL or tactile interpretation, please allow at least seven (7) days notice.

Learn more about the author and moderator below.

WIL HAYGOOD is the author of Tigerland, which was a finalist for the Dayton Literary Peace Prize; Showdown, a finalist for an NAACP Image Award; In Black and White; and The Butler, which was made into a film directed by Lee Daniels. He has been a correspondent for The Washington Post and The Boston Globe, where he was a Pulitzer finalist. Haygood is a Guggenheim and National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow, and is currently Boadway Visiting Distinguished Scholar at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio.

LaVonda N. Reed, J.D., has served as the dean of the University of Baltimore School of Law since July 2024.

Prior to joining UBalt Law, Dean Reed served as dean of the Georgia State University College of Law. A seasoned higher education professional, she previously held the roles of professor of law and associate provost for faculty affairs at Syracuse University, where she oversaw the university’s promotion and tenure review process, faculty research and administrative leaves, awards, and policy development and enforcement. During her tenure, she led many special projects and university initiatives including those related to employee benefits and the recruitment and retention of a diverse faculty. She founded both the Center for Teaching and Learning Excellence and the Center for Faculty Leadership and Professional Development. These efforts advanced Syracuse University’s National Science Foundation ADVANCE grant, supporting women and underrepresented minority scholars in STEM disciplines.

Dean Reed is a nationally recognized scholar in the areas of property law and telecommunications regulatory law and policy, and her teaching also includes wills and trusts.

Previously, Dean Reed served on the faculty of the Louis D. Brandeis School of Law at the University of Louisville. She also clerked for the Honorable Donald W. VanArtsdalen of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania and practiced communications and corporate law at the international law firm Paul Hastings LLP.

Dean Reed earned her Juris Doctor from the University of Southern California Gould School of Law and her Bachelor of Arts in economics from the University of Virginia.

About the Book

Award-winning author and journalist Wil Haygood explores how the Vietnam War became a mirror for the struggle of Black Americans—fighting for freedom abroad while demanding equality at home—and a powerful lens through which to understand the racial and political divides that continue to shape American life.

“With this book, Wil Haygood has become the preeminent chronicler of the Black experience in America.” —Richard Rhodes, Pulitzer Laureate for The Making of the Atomic Bomb

“In these masterful pages, Haygood reframes both the Vietnam War and the United States’ unfinished struggle for equality.”—Mitchell Zuckoff, New York Times bestselling author of 13 Hours and Lost in Shangri-La

Drawing on the lives of soldiers and officers, doctors and nurses, journalists and activists, artists and politicians, Haygood illuminates a generation caught between two battles: one on the front lines in Vietnam and another for justice and dignity in America.

Among those at the heart of the story are Air Force pilot Fred Cherry, the first Black officer captured by the North Vietnamese and a hero to millions back home; Dr. Elbert Nelson, a doctor who came to Vietnam after watching TV footage of the Watts riots in Los Angeles and soon found himself amid rising Black soldier protests overseas; Wallace Terry, a groundbreaking Black reporter determined to expose the dynamics of race and war to the American public and Philippa Schuyler, a biracial concert pianist who traveled to Vietnam to rescue mixed-race orphans, many fathered by Black soldiers, and died trying to bring them to safety.

Surrounding their experiences are the cultural and political forces of the era, including Martin Luther King Jr., Marvin Gaye, Berry Gordy, and Lyndon Johnson, whose voices and actions shaped a decade of turbulence and transformation.

The War Within a War is both sweeping history and intimate revelation, capturing the tragedies and triumphs, the honor and hypocrisies, the courage and cowardice that shaped an era and whose repercussions resonate today.

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