Life of a Klansman: Edward Ball with Saidiya Hartman | LIVE from NYPL

In Life of a Klansman, Edward Ball returns to the subject of his classic first book, Slaves in the Family: The Mechanisms of White Supremacy in America, as understood through the lives of his ancestors. This time, he tells the story of a warrior in the Ku Klux Klan, a carpenter in Louisiana who took up the cause of fanatical racism during the years after the Civil War. Ball, a descendant of this Klansman, paints a portrait of his family's antiblack militant that is part history, part memoir rich in personal detail. To have a Klansman in the family tree is no rare thing: Demographic estimates suggest that fifty percent of whites in the United States have at least one ancestor who belonged to the Ku Klux Klan at some point in its history. In the current era, when racist ideology and violence are again loose in the public square, Life of a Klansman offers a personal origin story of white supremacy.
Edward Ball researched and wrote Life of a Klansman during his 2015-2016 fellowship at the Library’s Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers as the David Ferriero Fellow. He discusses his book with MacArthur “Genius” Fellow and past Cullman Center Fellow, Saidiya Hartman.

Produced in partnership with the Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers.

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