HIS NAME IS GEORGE FLOYD: IN CONVERSATION WITH TOLUSE OLORUNNIPA
On Thursday February 29th, join us at The Africa Center for a discussion with Toluse Olorunnipa, journalist and co-author of the 2023 Pulitzer prize-winning book, His Name Is George Floyd: One Man’s Life and the Struggle for Racial Justice, which explores the legacy of racial injustice and police brutality in the U.S, through the complicated and uniquely American life of George Floyd. He will be joined in conversation by Uzodinma Iweala, writer and CEO of The Africa Center.
While the circumstances surrounding his tragic passing at the hands of police are familiar to most–as they sparked an unprecedented global movement for change–much about his life leading up to his death remains relatively unknown. The book is a heartfelt but uncompromising look at George Floyd’s complicated life within the context of an American society laden with social, economic, and judicial pitfalls.
Speakers
Toluse “Tolu” Olorunnipa is the White House Bureau Chief of The Washington Post, and the co-author of “His Name is George Floyd,” winner of the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for Nonfiction. He joined The Post in 2019 and has covered the last three presidents. Previously, he spent five years at Bloomberg News, where he reported on politics and policy from Washington and Florida. Olorunnipa has reported from five continents and more than 25 countries as part of the presidential press corps. He started his career at the Miami Herald, where he covered real estate, natural disasters and crime — sometimes all at once.
Uzodinma Iweala is an award-winning writer, filmmaker, and medical doctor. As the CEO of The Africa Center, he is dedicated to promoting new narratives about Africa and its Diaspora. Uzodinma was the CEO, Editor-In-Chief, and co-Founder of Ventures Africa magazine, a publication that covers the evolving business, policy, culture, and innovation spaces in Africa. His books include Beasts of No Nation, a novel released in 2005 to critical acclaim and adapted into a major motion picture; Our Kind of People, a non-fiction account of HIV/AIDS in Nigeria released in 2012; and Speak No Evil (2018), a novel about a queer first-generation Nigerian-American teen living in Washington, D.C. His short stories and essays have appeared in numerous publications like The New York Times Magazine, Vanity Fair, and The Paris Review among others. Uzodinma was also the founding CEO of the Private Sector Health Alliance of Nigeria, an organization that promotes private sector investment in health services and health innovation in Nigeria. He sits on the boards of the Sundance Institute, The International Rescue Committee, and the African Development Bank’s Presidential Youth Advisory Group. A graduate of Harvard University and the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons and a Fellow of The Radcliffe Institute at Harvard University, he lives in Brooklyn, New York.