When Germantown native John Fabian Witt graduated from Germantown Friends School (GFS) in 1990, no one could have predicted that he would go on to become a Yale University professor and Pulitzer Prize finalist and win numerous other prestigious awards for his exhaustively researched books on American history. Witt will speak about his career on Thursday, Dec. 4, 7 to 9 p.m., at the GFS Free Library. The event will be open to the public.

Witt is the Duffy Class of 1960 Professor of Law at Yale Law School and a Professor of History at Yale University, where he teaches and writes on the history of American law and the law of torts. Witt holds B.A. (1994), J.D. (1999) and doctorate. (2000) degrees, all from Yale.

His latest book, “The Radical Fund: How a Band of Visionaries and a Million Dollars Upended America,” published this October by Simon & Schuster, illuminates the story of a young idealist, Charles Garland, who in 1922 rejected a million-dollar inheritance, opting instead to invest in a future where radical ideas like economic equality and social justice could flourish. Over the next two decades, the Garland Fund he created, though dwarfed by the charitable foundations of industrial titans such as Carnegie and Rockefeller, would become a crucible for progressive thought.

Witt grew up on Pulaski Avenue in Southwest Germantown, across the street from the John B. Kelly School. He says that GFS shaped the person he has become. “Oh boy, did it ever,” he told the Local last week. “I am a GFS lifer. Astonishing GFS teachers delivered an education for which I am beyond grateful, one that I have been drawing on ever since I arrived at college, way ahead.

“But more than that, GFS supplied many of the values that guide me still today. Ideals like the equality of all people, individual freedom and nonconformism were in the air of the place, in the water fountains. For me, that meant coming to believe deeply in these ideals while also watching the Germantown neighborhood in which I lived struggle through the after-effects of deindustrialization and the great migration of Black Americans to northern cities like Philly.”

Reviews for “Radical Fund” have been universally euphoric. A typical one is this comment from Annette Gordon-Reed, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of “The Hemingses of Monticello,” who called it “a brilliant account of how one modestly endowed organization helped to transform America.”

Witt also authored “Lincoln’s Code: The Laws of War in American History,” which won the Bancroft Prize, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, was awarded the American Bar Association’s Silver Gavel Award and was a New York Times Notable Book. In addition to several other books, his articles have appeared in the American Historical Review, Columbia Law Review, Harvard Law Review, Yale Law Journal, The Atlantic, Nation, New Republic, New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Washington Post.

How long does it normally take Witt to research and write a book? “That varies,” he replied. “I wrote a small book during the pandemic titled ‘American Contagions’ on the history of epidemics and public health in American law and public policy. I put it together in six weeks. On the other hand, ‘The Radical Fund’ took 13 years! So it depends. I have been lucky to be able to follow the evidence and the archives where they lead me and to take the time that matches the project.

“‘The Radical Fund’ is the book that connects me to Germantown. In the process of researching, I ran into GFS connections, which was a happy surprise and which convinced me I was onto a subject that was right for me.”

Is Witt still friends with any of his former classmates at GFS? “Yes,” he quickly replied. “I see the writer Emily Bazelon from the class of 1989 all the time, sometimes nearly every day in New Haven. Erica Armstrong Dunbar at Emory University is the great historian from our class. If you want evidence, just check the airport bookstore shelves.

“Erica and I compare notes, and there’s a little group of us who sometimes call ourselves the ‘mini-reunion bunch’ -- Jonathan Fingerut, who teaches at St. Joseph’s; Cecily Cohen in New York, Matt Goodrich, R.J. Hazeltine-Shedd, Nadya Labi and Malcolm Baker are among the group.”

Witt’s mother, Loretta, is a Berkshire Hathaway real estate agent. His father, Thomas, practices law at Cozen O’Connor in Center City and teaches at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. His brother, Christopher (GFS, Class of 1992), is a biology professor at the University of New Mexico. His sister, Susee (GFS, Class of 1995), is the chairperson of the English department at the College Preparatory School in Oakland, California. Witt and his wife, Beverly Gage, have two teenage sons and a stepson.

For more information, visit law.yale.edu/john-fabian-witt. Len Lear can be reached at lenlear@chestnuthilllocal.com.