Alex Kotlowitz, acclaimed author and journalist, spoke to a packed Gerlinger Lounge at the 2000 Johnston lecture on January 14. His speech, titled “From Both Sides of the River; Writing on Race,” addressed what Kotlowitz identified as “our nation’s singular fissure: the division between blacks and whites.”

Kotlowitz’ lecture kicked off the University’s celebration of the Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday. “The School of Journalism and Communication is proud to join the University and the Eugene community in honoring the life of Dr. King and reaffirming our commitment to the dream of social justice,” said Dean Tim Gleason in his opening remarks.

Kotlowitz is widely recognized as one of the most sensitive writers about race in the United States. Professor Lauren Kessler, in introducing Kotlowitz, remarked that “he brings to his work the passion of an activist, the meticulous eye of the most discerning journalist and the sensibilities of a master storyteller.”

He is the author of the award-winning bestseller, There Are No Children Here, which chronicles the lives of two little boys living in Chicago’s public housing. His most recent book, The Other Side of the River, explores the circumstances behind the mysterious death of Eric McGinnis, a black teenager in St. Joseph, Mich., a primarily white town across the St. Joseph river from his home—primarily black Benton Harbor.

Before writing There Are No Children Here, Kotlowitz worked as a staff writer for the Wall Street Journal. He has written for the New York Times Sunday Magazine and The New Yorker. He has also contributed to the MacNeil-Lehrer News Hour and National Public Radio, and he is a writer-in-residence at Northwestern University.

In his speech, Kotlowitz discussed the difficulties of writing about race. “I knew that part of the story of race today is the story of absence, the absence of connections,” Kotlowitz said. “I can tell you that there is nothing more difficult for a writer than to write about absence.”

While his first book focused completely on a black family in a black community, The Other Side of the River tells the story of Eric McGinnis’ murder from the perspectives of both white and black communities. “Race is, after all, a social construct. It has everything to do with the relations between people,” Kotlowitz said of his decision to include both groups. “If I was going to write about race, I wanted to write as much about my own community as I was going to write about the black community.”

Kotlowitz went on to describe the evolution of The Other Side of the River, including what he learned about race, about myths and about the effect of history on racial divisions. During his research, Kotlowitz came up against extraordinary misconceptions from both communities. “I think that the reason for such misperceptions, the reason for such contortions, is simple—we have so little to do with each other, we live so physically and spiritually apart from each other…as a result, we don’t have those day-to-day connections, those routine connections that build up really the most profound connections that we have in our lives.”

Before fielding questions from the audience, Kotlowitz spoke of his hopes for those who read his book. “My hope is that as you wrestle with Eric’s death; you’ll be agitated, provoked, challenged; you’ll question some of your preconceptions, you’ll begin to wonder about truth and about myth. [I hope that] you’ll look at the world around you in a slightly different way, that you’ll look at the issue of race from an angle you haven’t explored before.”

The Johnston lecture is held annually in honor of Richard W. Johnston, ’36, and is part of the Johnston project in the SOJC, which brings professional writers and editors to campus for workshops, lectures, and discussion with faculty and students. Johnston was an acclaimed writer, editor and war correspondent. He was a founding editor of Sports Illustrated and later became the magazine’s executive editor.

In the days following the Johnston lecture, Kotlowitz conducted a workshop called “Writing About Children” as a part of the SOJC Literary Nonfiction program’s Writing About... workshop series.