Engage 2020: Summer Series - A Conversation with Historian Sonya Ramsey
July 2, 2020
Engage 2020 is pleased to welcome Sonya Ramsey, Ph.D., of the UNC Charlotte History department for the Engage 2020: Summer Series - A Conversation on Tuesday, July 14 at 7 p.m.
Dr. Ramsey is an Associate Professor of History and Women’s and Gender Studies and Director of the Graduate Certificate Program in Women’s and Gender Studies at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Born in Elizabeth City, North Carolina, she grew up in Nashville, Tennessee. She received a Master’s and a Ph.D. in United States History from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Dr. Ramsey specializes in African American Women’s History, the History of Education, and Southern History. An experienced oral historian, in 1993, she became one of the original interviewers in the Behind the Veil Project: Documenting the Jim Crow South oral history project sponsored by Duke University and the Ford Foundation.
Dr. Ramsey is the author of several historical works including, Reading, Writing, and Segregation: a Century of Black Women Teachers in Nashville, published by the University of Illinois Press. Currently, she is completing her book manuscript, After the Marches: Bertha Maxwell-Roddey's Educational Activism in the Desegregated South, which is under advanced contract with the University Press of Florida.
She is currently writing a biography of Dr. Bertha Maxwell-Roddey (b. 1930), who served on the front lines in Charlotte’s school desegregation battles as one of the first black women principals of a white elementary school in 1968. She worked to create a supportive and academically engaging environment for students as the founding director of UNC Charlotte’s Africana Studies Department (1971) and as the founder of the National Council for Black Studies, (1975) and she became a local community institution builder as Co-Founder of the Harvey Gantt Center. Bertha Maxwell-Roddey and other black women educators fought to improve children’s lives as the nation’s sentiment turned away from alleviating poverty, school segregation, and discrimination after the 1970s.
CARING AS ACTIVISM: BLACK WOMEN SCHOOL LEADERS AND SOCIAL CHANGE FROM THE 1950s TO THE 1990s
In these tumultuous times, one can see the impact of collective action. Dr. Ramsey's presentation will focus on a less prominent, but just as effective form of activism by discussing the experiences of four local African American women educational activists, Jayne Hemphill, the principal of Alexander Street Elementary School during segregation; Elizabeth Randolph, a former principal and the first black woman CMS administrator, Kathleen Crosby, a principal during the 1970s busing era and a CMS Area Superintendent, and Bertha Maxwell-Roddey, one of the first black women principals of a white elementary school in the City and founder of UNC Charlotte’s Africana Studies Department. These school leaders practiced a form of ‘caring activism’ as they fought against sexism and racism to develop unique strategies from negotiation to confrontation to help their students thrive. The lessons that they taught their students extended beyond the classroom and can serve as guides as we all strive to be caring activists.
Dr. Ramsey's presentation will be streamed live on the Library’s Facebook page and will be available afterward for viewing. We hope you will join the conversation. See the event details here.
In this election year, the Library is partnering with the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) offering programs like this one to encourage everyone to look back at what has been accomplished in the past and to move forward with empowerment to make a difference in one's own community. To learn more about Engage 2020, click here.