SLCL Black History Celebration Launches with Journalist and Historian Lee Hawkins

St. Louis County Library Foundation’s Westfall Politics & History Series and the 2025 Black History Celebration are pleased to host Pulitzer Prize-nominated Wall Street Journal reporter Lee Hawkins for a discussion and signing of “I Am Nobody’s Slave: How Uncovering My Family’s History Set Me Free.”

The event is presented in partnership with SLCL’s Emerson History and Genealogy Center and the Missouri Historical Society. 

Lee Hawkins will be in conversation with Gwen Moore, Curator of Urban Landscape and Community Identity - Missouri History Museum.

The event will take place on Thursday, January 23, 7:00 p.m. at the Clark Family Branch, 1640 S. Lindbergh Blvd., St. Louis, MO 63131. Books will be available for purchase and signing from EyeSeeMe.

2022 Pulitzer Prize finalist and former Wall Street Journal writer, Lee Hawkins’s riveting memoir examines his family’s legacy of post-enslavement trauma and resilience.

“I Am Nobody’s Slave” tells the story of one Black family's pursuit of the American Dream through the impacts of systemic racism and racial violence. To their suburban Minnesotan neighbors, the Hawkinses were an ideal American family, embodying strength and success. However, behind closed doors, Lee Hawkins, Sr. often exhibited rage, leaving his children anxious and curious about his protective view of the world. Thirty years later, his son uncovered the reasons for his father’s anxiety and occasional violence. Through research, he discovered violent deaths in his family for every generation since slavery.

Hawkins explores the role of racism-triggered childhood trauma and chronic stress in shortening his ancestors' lives, using genetic testing, reporting, and historical data to craft a moving family portrait. This book shows how genealogical research can educate and heal Americans of all races, revealing through their story the story of America—a journey of struggle, resilience, and the heavy cost of ultimate success.

Lee Hawkins was a 2022 Pulitzer Prize finalist as a lead reporter on a series about the Tulsa Massacre of 1921 at the Wall Street Journal, where he worked for nineteen years. He is currently a 2023-2024 Rosalynn Carter Fellow for Mental Health Journalism at The Carter Center and was named the Josephine Albright Fellow by the 2024 Alicia Patterson Foundation Journalism Fellowship. Additionally, Mr. Hawkins has been recognized as a 2022-23 O’Brien Fellow for Public Service Journalism at Marquette University. Hawkins is a five-time winner of the National Association of Black Journalists’ “Salute to Excellence” Award. He is the creator and host of the podcast “What Happened in Alabama?”

Program sites are accessible. With at least two weeks' notice, accommodations will be made for persons with disabilities. Call 314-994-3300 or contact us.