The Crusader Newspaper Group

The HistoryMakers will host An Evening With Valerie Jarrett

It will air on PBS tomorrow, Thursday, November 17 at 8:00 p.m. in Chicago.

An Evening With Valerie Jarrett provides a unique inside look at civic leader and businesswoman Valerie Jarrett, Senior Advisor to President Barack Obama. Taped at the historic Art Institute of Chicago and hosted by veteran NPR journalist Michele Norris, An Evening With Valerie Jarrett explores Jarrett’s fascinatingly rich life and career, as well as the legacy of her storied family. The riveting story begins with her great-grandfather, Robert Robinson Taylor, the first African American graduate of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and traces her roots through her grandfather, who chaired the Chicago Housing Authority in the 1940’s, her father, one of the world’s leading pathologists, and her mother, an early childhood development expert who co-founded the Erickson Institute in Chicago. Born in 1956 in Shiraz, Iran, Jarrett grew up in Chicago’s Hyde Park, attending Stanford University and the University of Michigan Law School before returning to Chicago to practice law. Her life was changed forever when she gave up her career in private practice to join the historic administration of Chicago’s first African American Mayor, Harold Washington. Her career in Mayor Richard M. Daley’s administration would lead her to the City of Chicago’s Department of Planning and Development, the Chicago Transit Authority Board, private real estate development, and eventually, advising the historic campaign and administration of the fifth African American United States Senator, and the first African American President of the United States – President Barack Obama. An Evening With Valerie Jarrett will keep viewers wanting more.

Recent News

Scroll to Top