Featured Speakers
Opening Plenary Keynote: James Howard Kunstler
Author and provocateur James Howard Kunstler will welcome us to Buffalo with an analysis of the state of urban and suburban design, planning, and living. Sparing no words (or anyone’s feelings), he will address what we see in our daily lives – including sprawl, government failure, and misguided leadership – and somehow make it all funny. He will sign copies of his books at the Opening Reception following the Plenary.
Partners Luncheon Speaker: Tom Toles
Tom Toles, Pulitzer Prize-winning political cartoonist, worked at the Buffalo News until moving to the Washington Post in 2002. A Buffalo native, he was an outspoken, often irreverent champion for Buffalo’s historic resources and the environment. He also put his money – or in this case, shovel – where his mouth was, digging and planting the restored Olmsted designed shrub garden at South Park. Join us to get his perspective on Buffalo and the fits and starts of its preservation progress.
Closing Plenary Speaker: Isabel Wilkerson
Isabel Wilkerson, who spent most of her career as a national correspondent and bureau chief at The New York Times, is the first black woman to win a Pulitzer Prize in the history of American journalism and was the first black American to win for individual reporting.
Inspired by her own parents’ migration, she devoted fifteen years to the research and writing of the book The Warmth of Other Suns. She interviewed more than 1,200 people, unearthed archival works, and gathered the voices of the famous and the unknown to tell the epic story of the relocation of an entire people.
For more information on Ms. Wilkerson and The Warmth of Other Suns, visit isabelwilkerson.com. She will be signing books immediately following the session.
