Upcoming Programs – Sankofa Collaborative

Coming Soon: Jim Crow in New Jersey, Part I

Keynote Speaker: Spencer Crew, Robinson Professor of U.S. History, George Mason University

Spencer Crew has worked in public history institutions for more than twenty-five years. He served as president of the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center for six years and worked at the National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution for twenty years. Nine of those years he served as the director of NMAH. He graduated from Brown University and holds a master’s degree and a doctorate from Rutgers University. In 2003 he was inducted into the Rutgers Hall of Distinguished Alumni. He is a Robinson Professor of American history at George Mason University.

Additional program highlights:

Panel on segregation at hotels and beaches – stories from Cape May, NJ
Visualization of school segregation in photographs by Wendell White

The Unfinished Revolution and the African American Experience from Slavery to Today

In June 2023 the Sankofa Collaborative kicked off a four-year series of workshops on the theme of “The Unfinished Revolution and the African American Experience from Slavery to Today,” intended to further the Sankofa Collaborative’s mission to build the capacity of individuals, groups, and organizations to learn about, present, and discuss the complex and difficult issues in the history and current experiences of African American citizens of New Jersey.

Each year’s workshops will focus on an era of African Americans’ struggle for freedom and the inalienable rights promised in the Declaration of Independence at the founding of our nation. In spring and fall 2023 the Collaborative presented Part I and Part II of “Slavery, It Happened Here, Too – Stories from New Jersey.” The themes for coming years are “Jim Crow in New Jersey” (2024), “The Great Migration to New Jersey – Is This the Promised Land?” (2025), and “Civil Rights in New Jersey Then and Now – Will Black Lives Ever Matter?” (2026).