Gail Buckley

The best histories are about more than facts and events – something that Gail Buckley intimately understands. Her first book, The Hornes: An American Family, is an inspired history of Buckley’s mother, musical legend Lena Horne, and her family. Buckley traces the Hornes’ roots from the post-Civil War Reconstruction era up to the present day, writing with great insight about a family with ties to every major event in the United States during the past 150 years.

Buckley is a chronicler of “undiscovered American history – the people and events that are left out of the textbooks.” Her latest work, fifteen years in the making, is American Patriots: The Story of Blacks in the Military from the Revolution to Desert Storm, which chronicles the black American military experience, one of the great untold aspects of American history. It is a dramatic and moving tribute to the military’s unsung heroes and their enormous contributions, capturing the spirit that drives men to better their lives and to demand of themselves the highest form of sacrifice.

At the podium, Buckley brings some of America’s greatest patriots to life. In a presentation described as “brilliant and intimate,” “thoughtful and entertaining,” Buckley illuminates the deeply moving and inspiration human stories of people determined to overcome obstacles of every kind.

A graduate of Radcliffe College, Buckley was nominated for a NAACP Image Award and received the 2002 Robert F. Kennedy Book Award for American Patriots. The Hornes became an American Masters documentary, and she narrated a documentary on black American families for PBS.

Buckley has written articles for The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, Vogue, America and many other publications. She has appeared on many radio and television programs including Charlie Rose, The Today Show, Weekend Today and the Jim Lehrer News Hour. She currently lives in New York City.