Discussion, Q &A and book signing with Ben Jealous former NAACP President, University of Pennsylvania Professor of Practice and Author of "Never Forget Our People Were Always Free"

Never Forget Our People Were Always Free illuminates for each of us how the path to healing America's broken heart starts with each of us having the courage to heal our own.The son of parents who had to leave Maryland because their cross-racial marriage was illegal, Ben Jealous' lively, courageous and empathetic storytelling calls on every American to look past deeply-cut divisions and recognize we are all in the same boat now. Along the way Jealous grapples with hidden American mysteries, including: Why do white men die from suicide more often than black men die from murder? How did racial profiling kill an American president?What happens when a Ku Klux Klansman wrestles with what Jesus actually said? How did Dave Chappelle know the DC Snipers were Black? Why shouldn't the civil rights movement give up on rednecks?When is what we have collectively forgotten about race more important than what we actually know?What do the most indecipherable things our elders say tell us about ourselves? Told as a series of parables, Never Forget Our People Were Always Free features intimate glimpses of political, and faith leaders as different as Jack Kemp, Stacey Abrams, and the late Archbishop Desmond Tutu and heroes as unlikely as a retired constable, a female pirate from Madagascar, a long lost Irishman, a death row inmate, and a man with a confederate flag over his heart. More than anything, Never Forget Our People Were Always Free offers readers hope America's oldest wounds can heal and her oldest divisions be overcome.

Ben Jealous has spent his professional life at the nexus of social change, media, and emerging technologies. He is a former Democratic Nominee for Governor of Maryland, former National President & CEO of the NAACP, former Executive Director of the National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA), and for more than half a decade has been investing in social impact startups. While at the NAACP, Jealous led a series of wholesale changes in how the organization used social media and related technologies to enhance its organizing. He is a visiting scholar at the Annenberg School for Communication.

Ben Jealous in conversation with Robert Kelly, Museums Coordinator.