Coastal Carolina University will host a Presidential Signature Series lecture by award-winning author, journalist, and educator Samuel G. Freedman on Feb. 6, at 4 p.m. in the Coastal Theater, Lib Jackson Student Union. The event is free and open to the public. Freedman’s lecture, “Fighting Hatred in the Heartland: Hubert Humphrey’s Battles Against Bigotry and Extremism in 1940s America,” is inspired by his book, “Into the Bright Sunshine: Young Hubert Humphrey and the Fight for Civil Rights.”

Established by University President Michael T. Benson in 2021, the Presidential Signature Series features activities ranging from lectures and performances to art displays and community events.

According to Oxford University Press, publisher of “Into the Bright Sunshine,” decades before the Vietnam War or his presidential run, Humphrey was known as a trailblazing statesman who electrified the nation through an impassioned speech in support of civil rights at the July 1948 Democratic National Convention. Urging the delegates to “get out of the shadow of state’s rights and walk forthrightly into the bright sunshine of human rights,” Humphrey – then a 37-year-old mayor of Minneapolis – put everything on the line, rhetorically and politically, to move the party and the country forward. To the surprise of many, including Humphrey himself, the Democratic delegates adopted a meaningful civil rights plank. With no choice but to run on it, President Harry S. Truman desegregated the armed forces and soon thereafter won reelection against the frontrunner Thomas Dewey, a victory due in part to an unprecedented surge of Black voters.

Published in July 2023 on the 75th anniversary of that pivotal 1948 speech, Freedman’s book, “Into the Bright Sunshine,” examines the politician’s early career, when his efforts to promote racial justice not only transformed the Democratic Party but the nation as well. Freedman explores the journey of Humphrey’s life from a remote, all-white hamlet in South Dakota to the mayoralty of Minneapolis as he tackles its notorious racism and anti-Semitism to his role as a national champion of multiracial democracy. His allies in that struggle include a Black newspaper publisher, a Jewish attorney, and a professor who had fled Nazi Germany. And his adversaries are the white supremacists, Christian Nationalists, and America Firsters of mid-century America – one of whom tries to assassinate him.

Freedman has been a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award and has won the National Jewish Book Award and the New York Public Library’s Helen Bernstein Award. His columns for The New York Times about education and religion have received national prizes. He is a professor at Columbia University and has been named the nation’s Outstanding Journalism Educator by the Society of Professional Journalists.