Bundle Tickets
–Not Yet Members: $31 (includes general admission ticket + book at 30% discount!)
–Members: $26 (includes discounted general admission ticket + book at 30% discount!)
–Insiders: $21 (includes free general admission ticket + book at 30% discount!)
General Admission Tickets (book not included)
–Not Yet Members: $10
–Members: $5
–Insiders: Free
Online ticket sales will close at 5pm on the day of the event; however, tickets can still be purchased at the door.
Woodruff Auditorium is located inside McElreath Hall. Doors and cash bar will open at 6pm.
How Michael Jordan’s path to greatness was shaped by race, politics, and the consequences of fame
To become the most revered basketball player in America, it wasn’t enough for Michael Jordan to merely excel on the court. He also had to become something he never intended: a hero.
Reconstructing the defining moment of Jordan’s career—winning his first NBA championship during the 1990-1991 season—sports historian Johnny Smith examines Jordan’s ubiquitous rise in American culture and the burden he carried as a national symbol of racial progress. Jumpman reveals how Jordan maintained a “mystique” that allowed him to seem more likable to Americans who wanted to believe race no longer mattered. In the process of achieving greatness, he remade himself into a paradox: universally known, yet distant and unknowable.
Blending dramatic game action with grand evocations of the social forces sweeping the early nineties, Jumpman demonstrates how the man and the myth together created the legend we remember today.
About the Author
Johnny Smith is the Julius C. "Bud" Shaw Professor of Sports History and Associate Professor of History at Georgia Tech. He is the co-author of Blood Brothers: The Fatal Friendship Between Muhammad Ali and Malcolm X (with Randy Roberts) and the author of The Sons of Westwood: John Wooden, UCLA, and the Dynasty That Changed College Basketball. Smith lives in Atlanta, Georgia.
About the Moderator
David J. Dennis Jr. is a senior writer at ESPN's Andscape. He’s also a panelist for the TV show Around The Horn and cohost of Debatable. His book, The Movement Made Us is a SOUTHERN INDEPENDENT BOOKSELLERS ALLIANCE BESTSELLER and one of Kirkus Reviews 100 best nonfiction books of 2022. Dennis is the recipient of the 2021 American Mosaic Journalism Prize, is a National Association of Black Journalist Salute to Excellence award winner, and was named one of The Root’s 100 Most Influential African Americans of 2020. He lives in Georgia with his two children and is a graduate of Davidson College.
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