I love the Mercantile Library. The way it looks, feels, smells. Entering that door, after leaving its private elevator, is always a pleasure.
It was definitely a pleasure last week to hear the 2008 Harriet Beecher Stowe Lecture, whose purpose is to ‘highlight the work of individuals who wrote or are writing to change the world’.
Cynthia Tucker, editorial page editor of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and a syndicated columnist, whose work appears in more than 70 newspapers, was the chosen speaker. Definitely a woman whose writing has changed the world.
As an African-American and a woman, running the op-ed pages of one of the most important newspapers in the country, she has already changed the world – and reflected in herself the changes we as a country have made. After having been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize several times, she was the recipient for commentary in 2007.
Her lecture was based largely on several of her recent columns, and the themes she had addressed in them. The long primary campaign season, with its shifts and learnings, was much on her mind. And a thoughtful and thorough mind it is. And her steady, calm pace fit right in with the Mercantile’s overriding ambience.
I’m thinking I’ll sign up to receive her commentaries on line. A good writer and thinker is always a pleasure, no matter the topic.