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• Lunch with Marilyn Holifield, "Seven Sisters and a Brother"

  • When
    27 Feb 2020
  •  
    12:00 PM - 2:00 PM
  • Location
    UM Newman Alumni Center, 6200 San Amaro Dr., Coral Gables, FL 33146
  • Spaces left
    88

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  Seven Sisters and a Brother:  Friendship, Resistance, and Untold Truths Behind Black Student Activism in the 1960s

  #1 New Release in 1960s History of the U.S. — A Story of Student Activists and Civil Rights

  Meet the inspirational students: This narrative tells the story of seven women and one man at the heart of a sit-in protesting decreased enrollment and hiring of African Americans at Swarthmore College and demanding a Black Studies curriculum. The book, written by the former students themselves, also includes autobiographical chapters, providing a unique cross-sectional view into the lives of young people during the Civil Rights era.

  Correcting media representation: For years the media and some in the school community portrayed the peaceful protest in a negative light—this collective narrative provides a very necessary and overdue retelling of the revolution that took place at Swarthmore College in 1969. The group of eight student protestors have only recently begun to receive credit for the school’s greater inclusiveness, as well as the influence their actions had on universities around the country.

  Stories that inspire change: This book chronicles the historical eight-day sit-in at Swarthmore College, and the authors also include untold stories about their family backgrounds and their experiences as student activists. They share how friendships, out-of-the-box alliances, and a commitment to moral integrity strengthened them to push through and remain resilient in the face of adversity.

  The incredible true story featured in Seven Sisters and a Brother will teach you:

  • No matter how old or established, institutions can change and will continue to change
  • How to identify fears and work to overcome them
  • That truth will prevail when we unite with others and refuse to accept surrender

  If you’ve read titles such as Warriors Don’t Cry, Between the World and Me, and Pulse of Perseverance, then you’ll love Seven Sisters and a Brother.

  
  

  Marilyn Holifield was one of three black students to desegregate Leon High School in Tallahassee, Florida. After graduating from Swarthmore College and Harvard Law School, she worked as a civil rights lawyer and later joined Holland & Knight LLP, becoming the first black woman partner of a major law firm in Florida. An avid art collector, she cofounded a foundation, which seeks to create the Miami Museum of Contemporary Art of the African Diaspora.
  

  Photo credit: Mango.bz  
  
  Publisher: Books & Books Press   
  

  PRE-REGISTRATION IS REQUIRED
  DEADLINE FOR REGISTRATION: FEBRUARY 24, 2020
  

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• Lunch with Erik Larson, "The Splendid and the Vile"

  • When
    06 Mar 2020
  •  
    12:00 PM - 2:00 PM
  • Location
    UM Newman Alumni Center, 6200 San Amaro Dr., Coral Gables, FL 33146
  • Spaces left
    75

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  The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz

  The #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Devil in the White City and Dead Wake delivers a fresh and compelling portrait of Winston Churchill and London during the Blitz

  On Winston Churchill’s first day as prime minister, Adolf Hitler invaded Holland and Belgium. Poland and Czechoslovakia had already fallen, and the Dunkirk evacuation was just two weeks away. For the next twelve months, Hitler would wage a relentless bombing campaign, killing 45,000 Britons. It was up to Churchill to hold his country together and persuade President Franklin Roosevelt that Britain was a worthy ally—and willing to fight to the end.

  In The Splendid and the Vile, Erik Larson shows, in cinematic detail, how Churchill taught the British people “the art of being fearless.” It is a story of political brinkmanship, but it’s also an intimate domestic drama, set against the backdrop of Churchill’s prime-ministerial country home, Chequers; his wartime retreat, Ditchley, where he and his entourage go when the moon is brightest and the bombing threat is highest; and of course 10 Downing Street in London. Drawing on diaries, original archival documents, and once-secret intelligence reports—some released only recently—Larson provides a new lens on London’s darkest year through the day-to-day experience of Churchill and his family: his wife, Clementine; their youngest daughter, Mary, who chafes against her parents’ wartime protectiveness; their son, Randolph, and his beautiful, unhappy wife, Pamela; Pamela’s illicit lover, a dashing American emissary; and the advisers in Churchill’s “Secret Circle,” to whom he turns in the hardest moments.

  The Splendid and the Vile takes readers out of today’s political dysfunction and back to a time of true leadership, when, in the face of unrelenting horror, Churchill’s eloquence, courage, and perseverance bound a country, and a family, together.

  
  

  Erik Larson is the author of five national bestsellers: Dead Wake, In the Garden of Beasts, Thunderstruck, The Devil in the White City, and Isaac’s Storm, which have collectively sold more than nine million copies. His books have been published in nearly twenty countries.
  

  Photo credit: Nina Subin   
  
  Publisher: Crown   
  

  PRE-REGISTRATION IS REQUIRED
  DEADLINE FOR REGISTRATION: MARCH 3, 2020
  

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• Lunch with Esther Safran Foer, "I Want You to Know We're Still Here"

  • When
    03 Apr 2020
  •  
    12:00 PM - 2:00 PM
  • Location
    UM Newman Alumni Center, 6200 San Amaro Dr., Coral Gables, FL 33146
  • Spaces left
    86

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  I Want You to Know We're Still Here: A Post-Holocaust Memoir

  A riveting memoir of family, the Holocaust, and the search for truth

  Esther Safran Foer grew up in a home where the past was too terrible to speak of. The child of parents who were each the sole survivors of their respective families, for Esther the Holocaust loomed in the backdrop of daily life, felt but never discussed. The result was a childhood marked by painful silences and continued tragedy. Even as she built a successful career, married, and raised three children, Esther always felt herself searching.

  So when Esther’s mother casually mentions an astonishing revelation—that her father had a previous wife and daughter, both killed in the Holocaust—Esther resolves to find out who they were, and how her father survived. Armed with only a black-and-white photo and a hand-drawn map, she travels to Ukraine, determined to find the shtetl where her father hid during the war. What she finds reshapes her identity and gives her the opportunity to finally mourn.

  I Want You to Know We’re Still Here is the poignant and deeply moving story not only of Esther’s journey but of four generations living in the shadow of the Holocaust. They are four generations of survivors, storytellers, and memory keepers, determined not just to keep the past alive but to imbue the present with life and more life.

  
  

  Esther Safran Foer was the CEO of Sixth & I, a center for arts, ideas, and religion. She lives in Washington, D.C., with her husband, Bert. They are the parents of Franklin, Jonathan, and Joshua, and the grandparents of six.
  

  Photo credit: Laura Ashbrook Photography   
  
  Publisher: Tim Duggan Books    
  

  PRE-REGISTRATION IS REQUIRED
  DEADLINE FOR REGISTRATION: MARCH 31, 2020
  

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