**THIS PROGRAM IS SOLD OUT** 

The Brown Lecture series is pleased to welcome Jada Pinkett Smith to the Pratt. 

Jada Pinkett Smith's new unconventional memoir Worthy is an invitation to join her adventure in search of love and self-worth. During this special event, Jada will recount her story in an intimate conversation with readers. She will share her journey from a challenging childhood in Baltimore to her controversial life in Hollywood, where she navigates complicated, false narratives about her marriage, her family, and herself. Through it all, Jada has learned to embrace her own worth fully and inspires us to do the same.  Jada Pinkett Smith will be joined in conversation by CNN's chief legal analyst and anchor and bestselling author Laura Coates. 

About the Author: 

Jada Pinkett Smith is an actor, producer, musician, host, author and advocate whose career has spanned over 30 years. Raised in Baltimore by her mother, Pinkett Smith attended the Baltimore School for the Arts where she majored in dance and theater. She continued her studies at the North Carolina School of the Arts before moving to Los Angeles to pursue a career in acting. In 1987, she landed her breakthrough role as Lena James on the groundbreaking NBC series, A Different World.  Her acting career continued to evolve when in 1993 she made it to the big screen in her first feature film, Menace II Society, which took her from Hollywood across the globe to the Cannes Film Festival.

Pinkett Smith had officially become a global star garnering roles in films such as The Nutty Professor, Set It Off, Scream 2, Ali, The Matrix Reloaded, The Matrix Revolutions, The Matrix Resurrections, Madagascar, Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa, and Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted and comedies such as Bad Moms and Girls Trip, to name a few. At the same time, Pinkett Smith also lends her talents behind the camera producing projects including The Secret Life of Bees starring Queen Latifah and Dakota Fanning, the Tony Award winning Broadway musical Fela! and executive producing King Richard, The Karate Kid, the documentary Free Angela and All Political Prisoners, the CBS syndicated talk show The Queen Latifah Show, Red Table Talk: The Estefans as well as Queen Cleopatra and Queen Njinga for Netflix. 

In 2018, Pinkett Smith added a new element to her multi-hyphenate talents, one of host, on the Emmy award-winning talk show titled Red Table Talk. On the series, Jada, alongside her daughter, Willow Smith and mother, Adrienne Banfield-Norris, take a multi-generational approach to discussions that speak to social and cultural issues, which have encouraged open discussions and dialogue among people of all ages.

About the Moderator: 

Laura Coates is CNN's chief legal analyst and anchor.  She is a well-respected constitutional expert, attorney, commentator, author whose depth of experience and broad expertise has earned her acclaim across all media platforms for her objective, nonpartisan legal analysis.  A former federal prosecutor, Coates served as an assistant U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, as well as a trial attorney in the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice, specializing in the enforcement of voting rights. As a civil rights attorney, she traveled throughout the United States supervising local and national elections and led investigations into allegations of unconstitutional voting practices. In private practice, Coates was an intellectual property litigator with an expertise in First Amendment and media law. She is the New York Times bestselling author of You Have the Right...A Constitutional Guide to Policing the Police. Coates' latest book, Just Pursuit: A Black Prosecutor's Fight for Fairness was an instant New York Times bestseller. The book takes us inside the ailing justice system from Coates' experiences inside the Department of Justice.

Coates is also the host of the award-winning daily “The Laura Coates Show” on SiriusXM’s bipartisan P.O.T.U.S. channel where she interviews world leaders and politicians from both sides of the aisle and engages the audience with a lively discussion on the intersection of politics and the law.

Coates is a graduate of Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, and the University of Minnesota Law School.  She resides in Washington, D.C. with her husband and two children.

Program Information: 

• THIS PROGRAM IS SOLD OUT.
• Doors will open to registered attendees at 6pm. 
• Seating for registered attendees in Central Hall is first come, first served. 
• Additional seating for registered attendees will be made available in the Wheeler Auditorium via livestream once Central Hall is at capacity. 
• All registered in-person attendees will recieve a free copy of the book. 
• There will not be a book signing following the program. 
• Free parking vouchers are available to program attendees who park at the Franklin Street Garage (15 W. Franklin Street) after 4pm.  Ask Pratt event staff for you parking voucher prior to or after the program. 

The Brown Lecture Series is supported by a generous grant from the Eddie C. and C. Sylvia Brown Foundation.