Mark Whitaker’s Smoketown is a captivating portrait of Pittsburgh’s renaissance of black culture, influence, and glamour from the 1920s through the 1950s.
Today black Pittsburgh is known as the setting for August Wilson’s famed plays about working-class strivers. But this community once had an impact on American history that rivaled the far larger black worlds of Harlem and Chicago. Smoketown depicts how ambitious Southern migrants were drawn to a steel-making city on a strategic river junction; how they were shaped by its schools and a spirit of commerce with roots in the Gilded Age; and how their world was eventually destroyed by industrial decline and urban renewal. Whitaker takes readers on a rousing, revelatory journey—and offers a timely reminder that Black History is not all bleak.
Price: $10
Tickets may be purchased online, by phone, or at the door from 6 p.m. on the day of the event.
Phone: 412.622.8866
Email: info@pittsburghlectures.org
2018/02/21 - 2018/02/21
Additional time info:
A book signing will follow the lecture. Smoketown will be available for sale from Classic Lines.
Carnegie Lecture Hall
4400 Forbes Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15213
Pay Parking
Parking for the Carnegie Music Hall and the Carnegie Library Lecture Hall is available at the Carnegie Museums in Oakland.
The museum operates a six-level parking facility for cars and small vans. The entrance is located at the intersection of S. Craig Street and Forbes Avenue.
Parking for most events is $6 for the whole evening. Pay stations that take credit cards are located at the exit gates, in the Carnegie Museum of Art (near the Carnegie Cafe’s first floor restrooms), and in the Portal Entry.
For Ten Evenings the parking is cash-only, pay upon entry, to ease the traffic flow when leaving the lecture.
Free Parking
There is free street parking in the City of Pittsburgh after 6 p.m. Please note that this does not apply to private lots, such as the ones owned by CMU.
You can check the on-street parking meters to confirm that you are in a location where parking is free after 6 p.m.
Please identify any accessibility needs to the Box Office upon arrival, or feel free to email us prior to the lecture.