Professor Raymond Arsenault will illuminate the life and legacy of John Robert Lewis (1940-2020), the 17-term congressman from Atlanta, Georgia, who first rose to fame as a courageous civil rights activist during the early 1960s. Professor Arsenault’s recent biography of Lewis, In Search of the Beloved Community, is as relevant today as it was during the Congressman’s lifetime. John Lewis has long been one of the most admired members of the United States Congress, a revered figure widely considered to be an incorruptible moral leader, and a steadfast symbol of integrity and courage. His stature as “the conscience of Congress” represents only the capstone of a sixty-year career as a civil rights and social justice activist.
Ray Arsenault is a Professor of Southern History emeritus at the University of South Florida, St. Petersburg. Born on Cape Cod and raised in Massachusetts, Virginia, Maryland, and Florida, he was educated at Princeton and Brandeis Universities. He moved to St. Petersburg, Florida in 1980 to teach at University of South Florida after four years at the University of Minnesota. He is a specialist in the history of Civil Rights, the American South and environmentalism. He has authored numerous books and articles, including The End of the Long Hot Summer: The Air Conditioner and Southern Culture (1984), St. Petersburg and the Florida Dream, 1888-1950 (1988), and Paradise Lost? An Environmental History of Florida (2005).
