Former Washington Post reporter and noted author, Jefferson Morley, will discuss the subject of his latest literary masterpiece, the Snow Riot of 1835. 

In “Snow-Storm in August,” Morley answers many questions and fills in some of the blanks, "...assembling a portrait of Washington in the 1830s by exploring characters who inhabit the second tier of history or well below. The plunge beneath the surface of history exposes realities more true to daily experience than executive proclamations or speeches in Congress."

"The book’s central motif is race, and the theme reverberates through a range of fascinating vignettes. Beverly Snow, an enterprising mulatto slave in Lynchburg, Va., is freed by his owners and reinvents himself as a leading restaurateur in the nation’s capital. Nat Turner's bloody slave rising in Virginia triggers a nationwide spasm of fear. The American Colonization Society blindly pursues its mad scheme of shipping millions of freed slaves to Africa, or the Caribbean, or anywhere but the United States."  Morley's masterful strokes caress the canvass with rainbow colors creating an unbelievable collage, melding the intricacies of a historical moment in time, which until recently, stayed forgotten and ignored in the District's history.