Event

Baratunde Thurston: How to Be Black

Comedian and director of digital for The Onion, Baratunde Thurston delivers a talk tailor-made for Seattle and our historical discomforts and secret desires. Based on his book How to Be Black, Thurston brings the audience on a journey from the birth of his great-grandfather into slavery through the (possible) re-election of the nation's first black president. His grandmother was the first black employee in the U.S. Supreme Court building. His mother took over radio stations in the 1960s, gave him an African name and loved tofu. He grew up under DC's crackhead mayor Marion Barry, attended an afrocentric rite-of-passage program and graduated from Sidwell Friends and Harvard. Undeniably black, Baratunde's story, experiences and hilarious insights are also inextricably American. Presented by the Town Hall Center for Civic Life. Series media sponsorship provided by PubliCola. Series supported by The Boeing Company, the RealNetworks Foundation, and the True/Brown Foundation.