The free, public talk will begin at 6 p.m. in Comstock Hall, School of Music, with a reception afterward in the University Club. Parking will be available in the club lot. Both are accessible from the Cardinal Boulevard campus entrance. (Buildings 83 and 22 on campus map.)
Robinson’s speech is the 2012 UofL Phi Beta Kappa lecture, sponsored by UofL’s College of Arts and Sciences, Office of the President, Office of the Vice Provost for Diversity and the Phi Beta Kappa Association of Kentuckiana. The honor society fosters academic excellence and promotes education in the liberal arts and sciences.
Robinson writes a twice-a-week Washington Post column about politics and culture, contributes to the PostPartisan blog and hosts a weekly online chat with readers. His three decades with the Post have included jobs as city hall reporter, city editor, foreign correspondent in London and Buenos Aires, foreign editor and assistant managing editor in charge of the style section.
An op-ed page columnist since 2005, he won the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for commentary for his columns about the 2008 presidential campaign that resulted in Barack Obama’s election.
His 2010 book, “Disintegration: The Splintering of Black America,” describes the fracturing of African Americans into four distinct socioeconomic sectors. Robinson also published “Last Dance in Havana” in 2004 and “Coal to Cream: A Black Man’s Journey beyond Color to an Affirmation of Race” in 1999.