Belonging is Emmy Award-winning j ournalist and CBS Saturday Morning co-host Michelle Miller&rsquo\;s candid memoir of her search for the light-skinned Chicana mother who deserted he r at birth and her subsequent struggle to make sense of who she was and wa s meant to be. This lifelong quest would lead her down a personal rabbit h ole\, but also shape her voice as a Black woman in white newsrooms\, as sh e reported history-defining moments like the Rodney King beatings and the murder of George Floyd. \;
\nMichelle will be in conversation wi th award-winning journalist \;Keith Alexander. The di scussion will be \;followed by a 10-minute Q&\;A from the audience and Michelle will sign copies of Belonging.
\ nThe DC Public Library is excited to partner with \;The \;Washington Association of Black Journalists&n bsp\;and the first 50 registered attendees will receive a copy of Belongin g provided by The DC Public Library Foundation.
\n< em>This event will have American Sign Language (ASL) interpretation. For r easonable accommodations\, please contact the Center for Accessibility at least seven (7) days in advance at 202-727-2142 or DCPLaccess@dc.gov< /p>\n
A singular story of parental abandonment\, racial identity\, and five deca des of family secrets\, BELONGING: A Daughter&rsquo\;s Search for Identity Through Loss and Love
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Michelle Miller is an Emmy Award-winn
ing journalist and CBS Saturday Morning co-host Michelle Miller&rsquo\;s c
andid memoir of her search for the light skinned Chicana mother who desert
ed her at birth and her subsequent struggle to make sense of who she was a
nd was meant to be. This lifelong quest would lead her down a personal rab
bit hole\, but also shape her voice as a Black woman in white newsrooms\,
as she reported history-defining moments like the Rodney King beatings and
the murder of George Floyd. Her complicated family story and her racial i
dentity resonates with the nation&rsquo\;s ongoing\, imperfect racial reck
oning.
Miller was born in a deeply segregated Los Angeles in 1967\ , the product of an extramarital affair. Her father was a prominent surgeo n who attend to RFK the night of his assassination and Compton&rsquo\;s fi rst Black city councilman\, her mother a Latina hospital administrator who presented as white. After her mother left\, Miller was raised largely by her father and paternal grandmother. Young Michelle was bused to wealthy w hite schools as the city tried to integrate\, further obscuring her own mi xed-race identity. When she was twenty-two\, and her father was dying of c ancer\, he instructed her to &ldquo\;Go and find your mother.&rdquo\; BELO NGING chronicles Michelle&rsquo\;s decades-long efforts to connect with th e woman who gave her life.
\nBELONGING &ldquo\;is my witness\,&rdquo \; Miller says. &ldquo\;In its simplest terms\, it is the story of one wom an&rsquo\;s search for herself. In the context of my mother&rsquo\;s early abandonment of me\, and my coming of age in the racialized crucible of my American homeland\, it is a search that has involved the painful work of constructing an identity that is authentic and purposeful\, healed\, and w hole. Perhaps\, as my father suggested when he urged me to explore the unk nown\, this is the task we must each engage&mdash\;to find our lives. We a re each\, after all\, born to a quest whose starting point is set by the p rovidence of where our star is cast\, and we must place our feet upon the path where we awaken\, and follow it home.&rdquo\; \;
\n
Mi
chelle Miller is an Emmy\, Gracie\, DuPont\, and Murrow award-winning jour
nalist who co-hosts CBS Saturday Morning. She first joined CBS News in 200
4\, and her work is also regularly featured on the CBS This Morning\, CBS
Sunday Morning and CBS Evening News. She has also appeared as a correspond
ent on 48 Hours.
Poignant and inspiring\, BELONGING is the unvarni shed\, universally appealing story of Michelle Miller&rsquo\;s journey to understanding herself and her own Blackness. \;
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Alexander began covering crime an d social issues in 2006 following more than five years as a financial writ er for the Post where he covered the airline and business travel industrie s. His former travel column\, &ldquo\;Business Class&rdquo\; ran weekly in the Financial section from 2001 through 2006.
\nDuring his tenure a t the Post\, Alexander was a lead business writer covering the Sept. 11\, 2001 terrorist attacks and the fallout that occurred within the airline in dustry as a result. For that coverage\, Alexander became a finalist for th e 2002 Livingston Awards\, a national competition for print and broadcast journalists 35 and younger.
\nIn 2007\, Alexander was part of the Pu litzer Prize winning reporting and writing team for the Post&rsquo\;s cove rage of the Virginia Tech mass shootings. Alexander nabbed the exclusive i nterview with poet and Virginia Tech professor Nikki Giovanni who taught t he gunman in one of her classes before having him removed.
\nPrior t o joining the Post in 2001\, Alexander was a business reporter for USA Tod ay covering airlines and business travel. During his tenure at USA Today\, Alexander won eight &ldquo\;Best of USA Today&rdquo\; awards. He is also a former correspondent for Business Week magazine and a former business re porter with The Dayton Daily News in Ohio.
\nHe graduated from Howar d University in 1991 with a degree in journalism. In 2000\, Alexander was named an outstanding alumnus by Howard&rsquo\;s School of Communications. And in 2017\, the school awarded him the Paul Robeson Award for Outstandin g Achievement in Journalism.
\nHe has been a regular on various TV n ews segments including NBC &ldquo\;Nightly News&rdquo\; with Brian William s\; A&\;E&rsquo\;s\, &ldquo\;Marcia Clark Investigates the First 48&rdq uo\;\; TV One&rsquo\;s &ldquo\;Fatal Attraction\,&rdquo\; ABC New&rsquo\; 20/20\, &ldquo\;Crime Watch Daily with Chris Hansen\, syndicated\; &ldquo\ ;Deadline&rdquo\; with Tamron Hall\; TV One&rsquo\;s &ldquo\;Fatal Attract ion\,&rdquo\; CBS Morning News\; MSNBC\, NBC&rsquo\;s The Today Show\, CBS Morning News\, and BET Nightly News with Ed Gordon.
\nAlexander has also worked as an adjunct journalism professor at various Washington area colleges including Howard University\, the University of Maryland and Tri nity College of Washington\, D.C.
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This event is part of the Mart in Luther King Jr. Memorial Library's 50th anniversary speaker series\, The Public Square. The Public Square is held in partnership with the DC Public Library Foundation and Pepco: An Exelon Company.
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