Black Women Legacies in Massachusetts with Dr. Alexandria Russell

Dr. Alexandria Russell, Executive Director of the Boston’ Women’s Heritage Trail, will highlight African American women memorials drawing from her book, Black Women Legacies: Public History Sites Seen & Unseen. Local communities have been fervent memorializers of African American achievement in the United States for centuries, and Dr. Russell reveals how they established a national infrastructure of named memorials during the Jim Crow era.

She will also discuss how local advocacy has shaped the public history landscape in Massachusetts and beyond through commemorations of women like Phillis Wheatley and Harriet Tubman. The centennial celebration of the founding of Negro History Week (now Black History Month) by Carter G. Woodson in 1926 and America 250 commemorations are timely reminders of the importance of documenting and disseminating the African American experience for current and future generations.