As part of the 2020 Speaker Series, Central Arkansas Library System (CALS) welcomes Angie Maxwell, co-author of “The Long Southern Strategy;” Tim O’Brien, author of “The Things They Carried;” Tom Llamas, anchor of “ABC News World News Tonight” weekend edition; and David Treuer, author of “The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee.” The events will be held at Library Square, CALS downtown Little Rock campus. The Speaker Series is free and open to the public, but reservations are requested at cals.org.

Here’s the lowdown from CALS:

Angie Maxwell, The Long Southern Strategy: How Chasing White Votes in the South Changed American Politics
Thursday, Feb. 20, 6:30 p.m. at Main Library, 100 Rock Street

The Southern Strategy is traditionally understood as a Goldwater and Nixon-era effort by the Republican Party to win over disaffected white voters in the Democratic stronghold of the American South. To realign these voters with the GOP, the party abandoned its past support for civil rights and used racially coded language to capitalize on southern white racial angst. The decision was one in a series of decisions the GOP made not just about race, but feminism and religion as well, in what Angie Maxwell and Todd Shields call the “Long Southern Strategy.”

Maxwell is the director of the Diane D. Blair Center of Southern Politics and Society, an associate professor of political science, and holder of the Diane D. Blair Endowed Professorship in Southern Studies at the University of Arkansas.

This event honors Maurice Smith, who served as chief of staff for Governor Bill Clinton. The program is to recognize and provide a forum for distinguished leaders who have modeled Smith’s commitment and service to state government in Arkansas and across the country.

Tim O’Brien, The Things They Carried
Saturday, April 25, 7 p.m. at Ron Robinson Theater, 100 River Market Avenue

Award-winning author and former reporter for The Washington Post, Tim O’Brien had what some would call a typical 1950s American childhood in rural Minnesota before he was sent to fight in Vietnam as a foot soldier in 1969. Published in 1990 to vast critical acclaim and written with the help of a National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) creative writing fellowship, The Things They Carried is part memoir, part fiction, and O’Brien wishes you luck figuring out which is which. The novel has sold over two million copies worldwide and was a finalist for both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award. More recently, the book was included among Amazon.com’s list of “100 Books to Read in a Lifetime” and was credited as the inspiration for a National Veterans Art Museum exhibit of the same name in Chicago.

This program honors Fred K. Darragh Jr., who served on CALS Board of Directors, in part, as board president. The lectures were established in 1998 in honor of his contributions to public libraries and reflect his interest in civil liberties, international friendship, intellectual freedom, and education. O’Brien’s appearance is part of the annual Six Bridges Book Festival and is sponsored in part by the NEA Big Read: CALS.

Tom Llamas, ABC News World News Tonight
Saturday, September 26, 6:30 p.m. at Ron Robinson Theater, 100 River Market Avenue

Llamas is an Emmy award-winning journalist, anchor of ABC News World News Tonight weekend editions, and the chief national correspondent reporting for all ABC News programs and platforms. During the 2016 presidential race, Llamas covered the vast field of GOP candidates and Donald Trump’s successful presidential campaign for two years. His tough questions and memorable exchanges with then candidate Trump led to some of the defining moments in the election. While at ABC, he also covered the Parkland shooting, the Las Vegas shooting, the Boston Marathon Bombing trial, and the Ebola crisis.

He has been recognized with several awards and honors throughout his career, including Emmy awards for “Best Anchor” and “Best Hard News Story” in 2013. Llamas was honored with the prestigious “El” award by El Diario in 2012, the country’s oldest and largest Spanish-language newspaper. In 2015, the National Association of Hispanic Journalists awarded Llamas with the Presidential Award of Impact.

Llamas’ appearance is the 2020 J.N. Heiskell Program, an annual event held in honor of John Netherland (J. N.) Heiskell who served as editor of the Arkansas Gazette for more than seventy years.

David Treuer, The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee
Thursday, October 29, 6:30 p.m. at Ron Robinson Theater, 100 River Market Avenue

Treuer has referred to his book as a “counternarrative” to Dee Brown’s 1970 novel Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee. A member of the Ojibwe Tribe from the Leech Lake Reservation in Minnesota, Treuer melds history with reportage and memoir. He explores how Native Americans have survived and maintained a sense of culture and identity despite brutal physical attacks, land seizures, and forced assimilation.

The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee was a finalist for the 2019 National Book Award and named a best book of 2019 by The New York Times, TIME, The Washington Post, NPR, The New York Public Library, and Library Journal.

Treuer is the author of four novels, most recently Prudence, and two books of nonfiction. He has also written for the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Esquire, Slate, and The Washington Post among others. He has a PhD in anthropology and teaches literature and creative writing at the University of Southern California. His appearance is part of a series of CALS programs that will recognize the 50th anniversary of Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee.

This program honors Rabbi Ira Sanders. The Sanders Lecture was established in 2000 to commemorate Sanders’s 40 years of service on the Boards of Trustees of Little Rock Public Library and the Central Arkansas Library System. The lecture includes topics that support Sander’s commitment to intellectual freedom.