Racism & Reconstruction in New Jersey
Date: Wednesday, November 18, 2020
Time: 11:30 am EST
Location: Zoom
Chhange's November Virtual Lunch & Learn, Racism & Reconstruction in New Jersey, will be led by Dr. Walter D. Greason of Monmouth University.
The Reconstruction Era is widely viewed as the brief period of time between 1865 and 1877 when Federal troops occupied the South, Black Americans represented Southern communities in the US Congress, and the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution suggested equality between the races was in reach.
This is an incomplete narrative. The Ku Klux Klan and its counterparts were waging a campaign of political violence across the country to re-establish white supremacy. Northern states like New Jersey were not exempt from the KKK and, later, Jim Crow; in fact, New Jersey has been a battleground state for racial equality since before the Civil War. Dr. Walter Greason will contextualize this history and the waves of political reconstruction that have shaped New Jersey’s race relations. He will also discuss the future of racism and equality in our state.
Dr. Walter Greason has provided anti-racism training to educators and administrators nationwide. He is the author of six books, including his two latest, Industrial Segregation and Cities Imagined: The African Diaspora in Media and History (both Kendall-Hunt Publishers). His other books include Suburban Erasure: How Suburbanization Ended the Civil Rights Movement in New Jersey (Fairleigh Dickinson University Press) and The Path to Freedom: Black Families in New Jersey (The History Press). Named one of “Today’s Black History Makers” by The Philadelphia Daily News, Dr. Greason has written more than one hundred additional academic articles and essays.
From 2007-2012, Dr. Greason was an advisor to Building One America, the coalition that designed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (2009). He also serves as the President of the T. Thomas Fortune Foundation. Dr. Greason’s digital humanities projects, “The Wakanda Syllabus” and “The Racial Violence Syllabus”, produced global responses in the last three years.
Dr. Greason currently writes about the racial wealth gap and the patterns of economic globalization. He graduated from Villanova University in 1995 before completing his doctoral research on suburbanization at Temple University in 2004.
1 hour of Professional Development Provided.
Pre-registration is required for Zoom URL.
Admission is FREE for Chhange Members & Brookdale CC Students and Staff