On Wednesday, September 12, a small group of Blackburn students went to Illinois College in Jacksonville Illinois to listen to Colson Whitehead, the Pulitzer Prize winning author of “The Underground Railroad.” Prior to his talk, Colson was at the Jacksonville public library for a meet-and-greet book signing.
“The Underground Railroad” follows the protagonist, Cora, who is escaping enslavement by traveling a literal underground railroad. While Cora is escaping with her fellow escapee, Caesar, a slave catcher, Ridgeway, is trying to hunt them down and getting very close to finding them.
This novel won the Pulitzer Prize, which is an award for excellence in newspaper journalism, literary achievements, and musical composition. It also won a National Book Award which is an annual U.S. literary award. It is also a part of Oprah’s Book Club,is a book discussion group where Oprah Winfrey chooses a book and talks about it on her show.
During Whitehead’s speech, he explained how he got the idea for “The Underground Railroad.” “I first came up with the idea for the book 18 years ago,” Whitehead said. “I remember when I was a kid and I heard of those two words (Underground Railroad)…I thought it was a literal subway beneath the earth which is very impractical.” From there, he explained his path to becoming a confident, successful writing. “I wanted to be realist (while writing the book) to testify in whatever small way for my ancestors and other Americans who were enslaved,” Whitehead stated.
Overall, the event was a success for the Blackburn students that attended it. … Christina Newton commented, “(I liked) his talk about the underground railroad. It was awesome especially for me because I’m writing my senior seminary using his novel. So it was awesome to get to hear him talk about the book in person and also give his perspective and hear about where his inspiration came from.” Another person who went on this trip was Chair of the English and Communications department Professor Karen Dillon. She stated, “I loved the event overall. I was super excited that we all got to have our books signed and get a picture with him.,I was impressed by him and I enjoyed it overall.”