Pulitzer prize-winning historian David Garrow, who is known for his biographical work entitled “Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference,” spoke at Binghamton University about another famous African American figure in history: current President Barack Obama.
David Katz/Contributing Photographer
“Know now, without a doubt, there are huge aspects of Barack Obama’s life that journalism has not begun to scratch the surface of,” Garrow stated at his lecture, which took place Sept. 21 in the Chamber Hall of the Anderson Center.
Citing “personal self knowledge” as his original motivation for pursuing information on Obama, Garrow discussed his next book, which will be titled “Rising Star: The Making of Barack Obama” and will be available to the public in early 2013.
According to Garrow, the project snowballed into a scholarly approach to the president’s life. The book will focus not on his current term in office but on what led and inspired Obama toward such a goal in the first place.
Garrow said that he will focus on the years before 2004, concentrating especially on the time between 1985 and 1988, when Obama moved to Chicago.
It was during this time, Garrow claimed in his lecture, Obama was “parachuted” into the political world, from a seemingly “unremarkable young man” to one who was determined to be something more.
“[It was the] experience of those neighborhoods and those people that made him want to change the world,” Garrow said.
Throughout the lecture, Garrow spoke not only of his work concerning Obama but also his method of research.
“The key to doing good history is not sitting around talking to academics, but going to the people no one has ever made the effort to locate and asking them for their memories,” he stated.
Garrow intends to further his research of two and a half years by continuing to talk to the individuals of Obama’s past, many of whom have yet to be interviewed by the general press.
The published historian proceeded to answer questions from the crowd following his speech.
The event was sponsored by Harpur College Dean’s Office, alongside the Institute for the Advanced Studies in the Humanities and the Binghamton Alumni Association.
“Serious scholarship [such as that done by Garrow] would help to illuminate important and contemporary political issues [for students],” said Donald Nieman, dean of Harpur College.
“It was really cool to be able to afford the opportunity to experience tangible presentations that directly correlate to the curriculum learned in class,” said Tara-Marie Lynch, a member of the audience who is enrolled in Nieman’s Law Race and Social Change in the 20th Century class.