The Office of Public Lectures presents: A Larger Freedom: Multiracial Democracy and the Radical Reconstruction of the United States with Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor

April 30, 2026 6:30 pm

Town Hall Seattle

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Headshot of Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor

This lecture delves into the enduring struggle for democracy in the United States, challenging the notion that democratic backsliding began with the 2024 presidential election. Instead, it traces the deeper historical and structural forces that have long shaped—and strained—American democratic institutions.

Through a critical examination of evidence pointing to democratic erosion, the lecture will explore what it truly means to live in a democratic society. What are the warning signs of decline? Who is most affected when democracy falters? And most importantly, how can democracy be safeguarded and made inclusive of all?

These questions form the foundation of a timely and urgent conversation about the future of democracy in America.

Registration opens March 10, 2026.

About the speaker

Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor

Professor in the Department of African-American Studies, Princeton University

Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor is a leading scholar and speaker on Black politics, social movements, and racial inequality in the United States. She is the author of Race for Profit: How Banks and the Real Estate Industry Undermined Black Homeownership (2019), which was a semifinalist for the National Book Award and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in History. Her earlier book, From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation (2016), received the Lannan Cultural Freedom Award for an Especially Notable Book. She also edited How We Get Free: Black Feminism and the Combahee River Collective (2012), which won the Lambda Literary Award for LGBTQ nonfiction.

Taylor is a contributing writer at The New Yorker, and her work has appeared in The Los Angeles Times, Boston Review, Paris Review, The Guardian, The Nation, Jacobin, and Souls: A Critical Journal of Black Politics, Culture, and Society, among others. She previously served as a Contributing Opinion Writer for The New York Times.

Recognized for her impact, Taylor was named one of the 100 most influential African Americans by The Root in 2016 and was included in Essence Magazine’s list of top 100 “change makers” in 2018. She has also been appointed as a Distinguished Lecturer by the Organization of American Historians.

Taylor is the Hughes-Rogers Professor of African American Studies at Princeton University.