A Good American Family: The Red Scare and My Father

William G. McGowan Theater
Washington, DC

Pulitzer Prize–winning author David Maraniss captures the pervasive fear and paranoia that gripped America during the Red Scare of the 1950s. A Good American Family recounts his family’s ordeal, from blacklisting to vindication. Elliott Maraniss, a World War II veteran who had commanded an all-black company in the Pacific, was  named as a communist by an FBI informant, called before the House Un-American Activities Committee, fired from his newspaper job, and blacklisted for five years. Yet he never lost faith in America and emerged with his family and optimism intact. A book signing follows the program.