[H-verkko] Helsinki, Lecture and discussion: The Legal History of the American Civil Rights Movement

[agricola at utu.fi]

Agricolan tapahtumakalenteriin on lähetetty uusi ilmoitus:
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Lecture and discussion: The Legal History of the American Civil Rights Movement

Helsinki, Kirkkokatu 6
9.4.2015 klo 17:00
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Thursday, April 9 2015 at 17.00.

Tieteiden talo (room 312), Kirkkokatu 6, Helsinki.

MA Jonathan Lagerquist: The Defense of “an Unconscionable Experimentation with
Ignorance”; The Legal Battle over Public Education in Prince Edward County
Virginia, 1959−1964.

In 1954 the Supreme Court of the United States found racial segregation in
public schools to be unconstitutional. When faced with a court order to
desegregate its public schools, the leadership of Prince Edward County in
Virginia chose to abandon its entire public school system, shutting down all
public schools between 1959 and 1964. The closure left more than 1,700 mostly
African American school children bereft of public education.

In the context of the legal history of the civil rights movement, the Prince
Edward closures are extraordinary. When the Supreme Court struck down the
closures and ordered Prince Edward to operate desegregated public schools in
1964, ten years had passed since the Court found that “in the field of public
education, the doctrine of ‘separate but equal’ has no place.” The case
provides for an interesting opportunity to explore what role public education
has in the American system of federalism, and generates new insight in the legal
history of the civil rights movement.

Historiska föreningen rf. has rewarded Jonathan Lagerquist with the Gunnar
Mickwitz prize 2014 for his MA thesis on the legal battle over the Prince Edward
school closures.

The lecture is followed by a discussion with Professor Mark Miller around the
history of the legal resistance to the civil rights movement. Mark Miller is the
Fulbright Bicentennial Professor in American Studies 2014–2015 at the
department of Area and Cultural Studies at the University of Helsinki.

The lecture is hosted by Historiska föreningen together with the American
Embassy and the American Resource Center.

 

Coffee and tea.

 


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