Location: The Heritage Foundation's Lehrman Auditorium

In Rediscovering Black Conservatism, author Lee Walker explains how conservative ideas grew out of the black experience in America, and how their strongest advocate – Booker T. Washington – got air-brushed out of black history during the politically charged 1960s and 1970s.  With the failure of the liberal welfare state during the 1980s and the subsequent world-wide rise of free-market ideas, Washington’s philosophy and his example have particular relevance to today’s social and economic issues.  Walker’s text serves as a primer on black conservatism and addresses the ideas, people, and issues that have shaped the movement.  He argues two central ideas – 1) conservatism is not a new phenomenon within black America and 2) it is the source of powerful ideas that can finally solve some of the long-term social and economic problems facing black Americans today.

Lee Walker is Chairman of the Illinois Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, President of The New Coalition for Economic and Social Change, and a former executive with Sears, Roebuck & Company.  Over the past 15 years, he has delivered hundreds of lectures, been a columnist for Crain’s Chicago Business and the Chicago Defender, produced a nationally circulated newsletter, and hosted a web site at www.newcoalition.org.