MEDIA ADVISORY
CONTACT: Jeffery Seay, FSU University Communications(850) 644-0277; [email protected]
Feb. 19, 2016
EXPERT AVAILABLE TO PROVIDE ANALYSIS ON LIFE OF FAMED AUTHOR HARPER LEE
Newswise — With the death “To Kill a Mockingbird” author Harper Lee, Florida State University English Professor Diane Roberts is available to provide context and analysis on Lee’s career and its impact on the literary world.
• Diane Roberts, professor of English, [email protected]Roberts specializes in Southern culture and is an author, columnist, essayist, radio commentator and reviewer. She earned her doctorate at Oxford University.
“Nearly 100 years after the Civil War, Lee reminded white Americans that they should care about justice for all Americans,” Roberts said. “Nelle Harper Lee grew up in Jim Crow Alabama, struggling to understand how her family and friends could so casually mistreat other human beings — indeed, define them as less than human — just because their ancestors came from Africa. She was born in 1926, a year which saw increased violence against American blacks, including the lynching of three young men in Aiken, South Carolina, as well as new laws against ‘race mixing.’ She lived to see America’s first African-American president elected twice, though recent events from Ferguson to Baltimore to Sanford, Florida, show that her great book, ‘To Kill a Mockingbird,’ still has much to teach us about hatred — and love.”
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