Nevada Humanities presents award-winning author Morgan Jerkins in conversation with historian Claytee White. Book signing to follow.
Morgan Jerkins is the author of The New York Times bestseller This Will Be My Undoing, as well as Wandering in Strange Lands: A Daughter of the Great Migration Reclaims Her Roots, and Caul Baby. Wandering in Strange Lands has been selected by Nevada Humanities as a Nevada Reads featured book for 2023. She holds a Bachelor's in Comparative Literature from Princeton University and an MFA from the Bennington Writing Seminars. Jerkins is a Forbes 30 Under 30 Leader in Media alumna, a 2021 ASME Next recipient, and an ASME Award winner. Her short-form work has been published in The New Yorker, The New York Times, Rolling Stone, The Guardian, ELLE, Vogue, and The Atlantic, among many other publications. She's currently based in New York and teaches at Princeton University.
Claytee D. White is the inaugural director of the Oral History Research Center at UNLV Libraries. In this position, she collects the history of Las Vegas and the surrounding area by gathering memories of events and experiences from long-time residents. Current projects include Latinx Voices, Asian American Pacific Islanders, and the ongoing project of the African American Experience in Las Vegas. All projects function to broaden the diverse history housed in UNLV Libraries.
Currently, she hosts and moderates televised episodes of We Need To Talk, a series designed to address systemic racism in all of its manifestations. These panel discussions allow campus researchers and community activists to engage in conversations designed to heal the city. Additionally, she has crafted a monthly campus radio talk to discuss books, ideas, COVID-19, music, and Las Vegas history in Soul to Soul: Universal Ideas for a Brighter Tomorrow. This show designed to be a free-for-all of positive energy is currently on haitus.
Claytee received her Bachelor of Arts degree in social work from California State University Los Angeles, Master of Arts degree in American History from the University of Nevada Las Vegas, and engaged in additional graduate work at the College of William and Mary. A native of Ahoskie, North Carolina, Claytee is a member of the national Oral History Association, past president of the Southwest Oral History Association, served as a 6-years board member of Nevada Humanities, and former Chair of the Las Vegas Historic Preservation Commission where she served for 14 years, receiving a Proclamation declaring February 24, 2021 as Claytee White Day in the City of Las Vegas. Currently, Claytee is on the Board of Women of Diversity and the MOB Museum and on the Advisory Board for BlackPast.org.