Many of us learn about school desegregation in the context of the mid-twentieth-century South: Brown v. Board of Education, Ruby Bridges, and the Little Rock Nine. Yet a century before that, young Black women in Massachusetts led the fight for equal school rights—the right of all to a quality education on an equal basis. This lecture examines the lives of young Black women whose activism reshaped public education in the Bay State. Exploring this history is vital, not only to spotlight the long struggle for Black educational justice, but also to remind us of our collective obligation to democratize public schools today.
About the speaker: Kabria Baumgartner is an award-winning historian who has worked with numerous historical organizations. In 2021, she co-founded the award-winning Newburyport Black History Initiative (NBHI), an organization that highlights and incorporates Black history into the public landscape in downtown Newburyport. In 2019, she published her first academic book, In Pursuit of Knowledge: Black Women and Educational Activism in Antebellum America, which tells the story of young Black women who fought to democratize public education in the nineteenth-century North. She is Dean’s Associate Professor of History and Africana Studies at Northeastern University.
This program is part of the Newton History Series, co-sponsored by Historic Newton and the Newton Free Library.
Registration is encouraged, and you’ll get a reminder if you sign up. Walk-ins are also welcome.
