Downtown Salem Event To Explore Teaching Jim Crow in 2024

SALEM, MASS. – A discussion in downtown Salem the day after the presidential election will bring to the public a deep dive on teaching Jim Crow in public schools.

Hasan Kwame Jeffries, a nationally recognized historian and associate professor of history at Ohio State University, will lead a panel Wednesday, Nov. 6 titled “Teaching Difficult Topics: A Roundtable on Jim Crow.”

The event, organized by Salem State University’s Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies and the university’s history department, will be held at 7 pm in the Salem Maritime National Historic Site’s Visitor Center at 2 New Liberty St. It’s free and open to the public, though registration is required in advance. The public roundtable is the first of two events on teaching Jim Crow organized by the Center, with a professional development workshop for teachers set for the following Thursday.

The event will explore the importance of understanding the legal and extralegal structures that enforced Jim Crow for decades, and the resilience of Black people, communities and institutions in the face of it.

There’s much to be gained in examining Jim Crow through new lenses, according to Christopher Mauriello, executive director of the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies.

“History is dynamic and far from settled. Historians and educators are constantly re-examining the past and past historical narratives for new insight and new perspectives,” Mauriello said. “Racism and slavery existed in the US throughout its history and the long legacy of slavery and Jim Crow continue to structurally and culturally inform and shape current society, the lives of millions of citizens, our institutions, our policies, and our national identity.”

To that end, genocide studies tend to focus on distant countries. In this case, an inward look provides an added layer of value to the conversation, according to Mauriello.

“When the center creates educational programs about genocides that happened in far away places like Armenia, Cambodia, Rwanda or Bosnia, we all have a sense of injustice that occurred ‘over there,’ outside of the US in somewhat different contexts than our own,” he said. “When we develop a program about Jim Crow in the U.S., we are looking into a mirror, at ourselves, our own history with our own racism, prejudice and human rights abuses.”

Jeffries will be joined on the roundtable by Salem State professors Brad Austin, Bethany Jay and Steven Oliver.

“Most curriculum ignores the complicated history of Jim Crow, using images of segregated water fountains to represent decades of oppression,” said Jay, a history professor. “By ignoring this era, our classrooms render students ill-prepared to understand the world today.

“This forum will discuss how many of the structures of modern inequality – from voting rights to housing, education and economic opportunity – were institutionalized during Jim Crow,” Jay continued. “In doing so, it will highlight the importance of discussing the legal and extralegal mechanisms used to support Jim Crow in both the North and South and the experiences of the African American communities who lived within them.”

Registration is required ahead of the event. Visit the event page for more information.