Pulitzer Winner Gil King Returns to Niskayuna High

Gil King, graduate of Niskayuna High School, returned to his hometown on Monday to talk with high school students. King, who visited the Writers Institute in September 2013, received the 2013 Pulitzer Prize in nonfiction for Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, The Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America, an elegantly written account of the future Supreme Court Justice’s role in defending four black men falsely accused of raping a white woman in Florida in 1949.

Bill Buell of the Schenectady Gazette reports:

     [King] was thrilled that so many students seemed interested and excited by their interaction with a Pulitzer Prize winner.He conceded a similar situation probably wouldn’t have interested him when he was in high school.
     “Yeah, I would have checked out mentally of something like this back then,” he said. “But everybody seemed to be paying attention and that was nice. They asked a lot of questions, and some were very passionate and I love that. I was shocked. I can’t believe how much time I let pass in high school without paying attention to anything.”

More in the Gazette:  http://www.dailygazette.com/news/2014/mar/04/0304_king/

More about King's visit:  http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/archives/king_gilbert13.html