The Steinbeck Conversation Series: Getting History Right

Moderator: Pete Peterson - Dean of the Pepperdine School of Public Policy and holds the Braun Family Dean’s Chair. He is a leading national speaker and writer on issues related to civic participation, and the use of technology to make government more responsive and transparent.

Dr. Clayborne Carson is the founder of the Martin Luther King, Jr., Research and Education Institute at Stanford University, where he is also the Martin Luther King Jr. Centennial Professor Emeritus of History and Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. He has devoted most of his professional life to the study of Martin Luther King Jr. and the movements the iconic orator inspired. Dr. Carson’s scholarly publications have focused on African-American protest movements and political thought of the period after World War II. In 1985, Coretta Scott King invited Dr. Carson to edit and publish the papers of her late husband. Under Carson’s direction, the King Papers Project has produced seven volumes of The Papers of Martin Luther King Jr. He has served as a consultant on several documentary films and has appeared on many national TV and radio programs.

Historian Dr. Carol Lynn McKibben is an authority on ethnic and race relations for the Central Coast region who has just completed her third book project, SALINAS: Race and Resilience in an Agricultural City (Stanford University Press, 2021). She is an Affiliate Scholar and Lecturer with The Bill Lane Center for the American West and with the Urban Studies Program at Stanford University and has been teaching courses on urban history, California history, immigration, and race and ethnicity at Stanford University for fifteen years. See www.carollynnmckibben.com