Each Spring, the Johnson Institute sponsors the annual James Weldon Johnson Distinguished Lecture, a major address by a distinguished race scholar and public intellectual. The 2019 speaker was historian and award-winning scholar and writer Nell Irvin Painter who delivered the lecture entitled, "What Can 'The History of White People' Teach Us About Race in America?”

Nell Irvin Painter is a distinguished and award winning scholar and writer. A graduate of Harvard University, Painter went on to become the Edwards Professor Emeritus of American History at Princeton University. She is the author of seven books and countless articles relating to the history of the American South. Painter’s latest book, The History of White People, guides us through more than 2000 years of Western civilization, illuminating not only the invention of race but the frequent praise of “whiteness.”She received her Ph.D. from Harvard University, her M.A. from the University of California, Los Angeles and her undergraduate degree from the University of California, Berkeley. Painter retired from the Princeton History Department in 2005, and used her newly acquired free time to earn a BFA degree from Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University in 2009 and received her MFA in painting at the Rhode Island School of Design in 2011.

In June 2018, Painter published her newest book, entitled "Old in Art School: A Memoir of Starting Over," about her experiences during this time.

This event is co-sponsored by Emory Department of History, Institute of African Studies and the Jimmy Carter Endowed Chair Fund.

The James Weldon Johnson Institute for the Study of Race and Difference supports research, teaching, and public dialogue that examine race and intersecting dimensions of human difference including but not limited to class, gender, religion, and sexuality.

http://jamesweldonjohnson.emory.edu