Author Event—Something We Said: Richard Pryor, a Notorious Word, and Me

Elizabeth Stordeur Pryor is a Professor of History at Smith College where she teaches courses on race, slavery and her father, comedic legend Richard Pryor. She is the award-winning author of the article “The Etymology of [N-Word]: Resistance, Language, and the Politics of Freedom in the Antebellum North” and a 2016 book Colored Travelers: Mobility and the Fight for Citizenship before the Civil War, which argues the cars, compartments and cabins of public transportation were the frontlines for the battle for equal rights in the 19th century. Her viral TED talk on why it's hard to talk about the n-word has been viewed over two million times.

Part memoir by the daughter of the iconic comedian Richard Pryor, part exploration of the historical and contemporary use of the N-word, this hybrid book peels back the curtain on the life of Pryor and interrogates the most perplexing word in the American lexicon, a…