Unchained But Free? The effects of cumulative trauma and what it takes to heal
Journalists: LEE HAWKINS in Conversation with EMEFA ADDO AGAWU
3:00 pm – 4:00 pm
31st Street & Barclay Street
Waverly Neighborhood
A 2022 Pulitzer Prize finalist, journalist LEE HAWKINS is the author of I Am Nobody’s Slave: How Uncovering My Family’s History Set Me Free, a “deeply reflective” memoir that uncovers four centuries of his family’s triumphs and tragedies while examining how generational violence and other Adverse Childhood Experiences shape lifelong health and well-being. Blending DNA sleuthing, investigative reporting, and a focus on resilience and joy, Hawkins invites readers and audiences to explore healing, justice, and non-violent change. Writer/Editor EMEFA ADDO AGAWU speaks to him about his debut work, deemed “Harrowing and insightful … A profound work about the Black experience and white oppression,” in a starred Kirkus Review. A former reporter for the Wall Street Journal, where he worked for 19 years, Hawkins covers entrepreneurship, corporate, and investing worlds, focusing on the generational effects of economic discrimination, including racial covenants, land theft, and the impact of economically motivated historical homicides on families of color. “The spirit of Emmett Till lives on and is deeply embedded in our consciousness … The book encourages families to confront the trauma and triumphs of previous generations as a way to process and recover from the damaging effects of slavery and Jim Crow.” — Deborah A. Watts, Cousin of Emmett Till and Co-Founder of the Emmett Till Legacy Foundation. Emefa Addo Agawu is an award-winning writer and editor living in Baltimore and a 2024-2025 Moynihan Public Scholar at The City University of New York.
STAY INFORMED
Lee Hawkins is a Pulitzer Prize finalist and the Series Creator, Producer, and Writer of the award-winning podcast What Happened in Alabama? for American Public Media, which was named a “Best Podcast” by The Guardian and Amazon/Audible, and was ranked #25 on Apple Podcast’s “Top Shows” charts. His debut book, I Am Nobody’s Slave, where he used genetic research, archival discovery, and oral history to map his family history, shows how entrepreneurship and landownership repeatedly provoked lethal backlash, with a relative killed every generation since 1837. The memoir earned starred reviews in Kirkus and Library Journal, appeared on Oprah Daily’s Black History Month list, and was an Amazon Editor’s Pick. Raised in Minnesota’s historic Rondo community, Hawkins speaks on racial violence, intergenerational trauma, ACEs, and non-violent social change, drawing on fellowships from the Rosalynn Carter, Alicia Patterson, McGraw, and O’Brien programs.
Leehawkinsjr.com
X: @leehawkins
Instagram: @leehawkinsworld
Emefa Addo Agawu is a Baltimore-based writer and editor. She was a 2024-2025 Moynihan Public Scholar at The City University of New York. Previously, Agawu produced The Ezra Klein Show at The New York Times and wrote editorials at The Washington Post as a member of the paper’s editorial board. For her reporting on public safety, Agawu won the 2022 Burl Osborne Editorial and Opinion Award and was a finalist for the 2021 Online Journalism Awards Excellence in Social Justice Reporting. She is currently at work on a collection of essays about attention. Episodes she produced for the Ezra Klein Show include the hidden costs of cheap meat, why government services often suck and what to do about it, the crisis facing men and boys, and radical experiments in communal living. Before getting into journalism, she earned a BA in Political Science from Yale College and an MPhil in Comparative Government from Oxford University. She’s worked on tech policy at New America and the Center for Security and Emerging Technology and wrote about things like state and local cybersecurity and election security.