SAN FRANCISCO – Celebrate bestselling author Dr. Jewell Parker Rhodes as she delivers the 27th annual Effie Lee Morris Lecture on Wednesday, June 7 in the Main Library’s Koret Auditorium at 5 p.m. This year, the Effie Lee Morris Lecture returns as an in-person event to the Koret Auditorium for the first time since 2019. It will also be broadcast live on Zoom. This event is for all ages.

Dr. Rhodes's topic is "Words as Witness, Words as Healing." Her books for youth include Ghost Boys, where the long shadows of violence against Black kids and teens reach from the past into the present. Louisiana Girls Trilogy: Bayou Magic is about a young girl who learns to carry forward her family’s magical legacy. Paradise on Fire tells the story of a group of Black city kids who learn wilderness skills and how to survive in a perilous world. And Black Brother, Black Brother is about a Black kid who joins the fencing team, faces off against injustice and a bully, and makes a place for himself in a world that prefers his light-skinned brother. 

A book signing follows the lecture. Free copies of the author's books will be available to kids and teens who attend, while supplies last. Books will also be sold by the Friends of the San Francisco Public Library.

Dr. Rhodes is the recipient of a Coretta Scott King Award for Louisiana Girls Trilogy: Ninth Ward; a Walter Dean Myers Award for Ghost Boys; an American Book Award for her adult historical novel Douglass’ Women and numerous other honors. She lives in Seattle and serves as the founding artistic director of the Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing and Narrative Studies Professor and Virginia G. Piper Endowed Chair at Arizona State University. She is also the recipient of an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from Carnegie-Mellon University.

27th Annual Effie Lee Morris Lecture – June 7, 5 p.m. Main Library, Koret Auditorium

For more information, call (415) 557-4554.

About San Francisco Public Library:

San Francisco Public Library is dedicated to free and equal access to information, knowledge, independent learning and the joys of reading for our diverse community. The library system is made up of 27 neighborhood branches, the San Francisco Main Library at Civic Center and four bookmobiles