LANCASTER, PA – LancasterHistory will welcome Clint Smith—an award-winning author, poet, and staff writer for The Atlantic—-to Lancaster on Wednesday, October 7, for "Revolution to Reconstruction: Pennsylvania and the Fight for Liberty & Equality," a special America250PA lecture examining Pennsylvania’s central role in shaping American ideas of liberty and equality. The free public program will take place at the Ware Center for the Performing Arts, 42 N. Prince Street in downtown Lancaster. Doors open at 5 p.m., with the program beginning at 5:30 p.m. Advance registration is required, and the event is anticipated to reach capacity.

As the United States marks its 250th anniversary, Smith will explore the complex and often contradictory ways Americans have understood freedom, equality, and citizenship from the Revolution through Reconstruction. Drawing connections between Pennsylvania’s history and the larger American story, the program will challenge the notion that there is—or ever has been—a single American experience.

Smith is the author of the acclaimed narrative nonfiction book How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America, a #1 New York Times bestseller and winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction, the Hillman Prize for Book Journalism, and the Stowe Prize. The New York Times named it one of the 10 best books of 2021.

He is also the author of the New York Times bestselling poetry collection Above Ground and the award-winning Counting Descent. With Sonja Cherry-Paul, Smith adapted How the Word Is Passed for young readers in 2025. His forthcoming nonfiction book, Just Beneath the Soil, explores how World War II is remembered around the world and is scheduled for publication by Knopf in May 2027.

“It’s an honor to welcome Clint Smith to Lancaster and to the conversation about how we address topics around slavery and freedom in the historic sites here in the County," said Robin Sarratt, President & CEO of LancasterHistory. "One of the things I most appreciate about Smith’s research and writing is the way he interrogates seemingly ordinary places to uncover how communities tell stories about some of the most difficult truths in our history. Lancaster has experienced its own struggles and reckonings, but I believe we are stronger when we are willing to look critically and candidly at our past. At the Stevens & Smith Center, we hope to create space for that kind of conversation—one that is honest, transparent, critical, and, ultimately, hopeful.”

Smith’s writing has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, Poetry Magazine, The Paris Review, and other publications. He was named a New America Emerson Collective Fellow in 2020 and the inaugural fellow of the Sachs Foundation in 2026. He holds a B.A. in English from Davidson College and a Ph.D. in Education from Harvard University.

The October 7 program will include an audience Q&A. The lecture will not be livestreamed or recorded. Tickets are free, but advance registration is required. Attendees may register through LancasterHistory’s website, or by calling 717-392-4633. Signed copies of Smith’s How the Word Is Passed will also be available for purchase at the event through our partners at Pocket Books.

About LancasterHistory
LancasterHistory is a community-based, not-for-profit organization established to educate the public on the history of Lancaster County and its place in the history of Pennsylvania and the United States, to advance the missions of regional historical organizations, and to promote the acquisition, preservation, and interpretation of resources representing the history of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania within the broader context of state and national history, including the homes of 15th US President James Buchanan and Congressman Thaddeus Stevens and Lydia Hamilton Smith.