Robert J. Doherty Lecture with Douglas A. Blackmon: What Comes Next?

The Robert J. Doherty Memorial Lecture by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Douglas A. Blackmon: "WHAT COMES NEXT? Redefining Police Power, Restoring Personal Freedom, Rebuilding Faith in American Democracy."

Thursday, April 2, 2026 @ 7PM
Troy Savings Bank Music Hall, Troy, NY

This event is free. RSVP.

Join us for the fourth annual Robert J. Doherty Memorial Lecture with Douglas A. Blackmon.

Douglas A. Blackmon is a journalist, scholar, filmmaker, and the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II. His book revealed how a system of enslavement of African-Americans was resurrected after the Civil War and persisted deep into the 20th century. Blackmon was co-executive producer of the documentary film based on Slavery by Another Name, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2012, attracted more than five million viewers in its first broadcasts on PBS, and continues to be regularly rebroadcast on public television across the U.S.

He wrote and co-directed The Harvest, a documentary examining public school integration and the consequences, 50 years later, of America’s failure to replace segregation with diverse, shared educational experiences. He directs the Narrating Justice Project at Georgia State University in Atlanta, and was previously a member of the faculty at the University of Virginia's Miller Center. He also hosted more than 200 episodes of the nationally broadcast public television discussion program American Forum.

Blackmon was an award-winning senior national correspondent and bureau chief for many years at The Wall Street Journal, and a member of reporting teams that won a Pulitzer Prize in 2002 and were finalists for a Pulitzer in 2011. He is co-author of a forthcoming book with former U.S. Attorney General Eric H. Holder.

Blackmon’s journalism began with an article published in the local newspaper when he was 12 years old. Over his career he has reported on events including the fall of the Berlin Wall, multiple U.S. presidential elections, post-Apartheid South Africa, war crimes during the civil war in the former Yugoslavia, Hurricane Katrina, and issues such as mass incarceration and racial inequity in America.