Historian Christopher Schmidt To Speak

Dartmouth College history instructor Christopher Schmidt will present a convocation address titled “The Making of Brown v. Board of Education” at 10:50 a.m. on Friday, April 23 at Carleton College’s Skinner Memorial Chapel. The event is free and open to the public.

Fifty years ago on May 17, 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court declared in Brown v. Board of Education that racial segregation in public schools unconstitutionally deprived students of equal educational opportunities. This ruling paved the way for significant opportunities in our society, especially for equal justice, fairness and education. The Supreme Court’s landmark decision had its roots in numerous developments of the 1940s and early 1950s, including the experience of World War II and the Cold War, the impact of the Great Black Migration, the growth of African American activism, and the emergence of a new generation of liberal activists and policy-makers who were willing to reconsider the role of the government in dealing with the nation’s racial tensions. Schmidt will explore these issues by analyzing the lives and experiences of a diverse group of extraordinary individuals who were central to the making of this historical decision.

Schmidt teaches in the history department at Dartmouth College and is currently a fellow at the Miller Center for Public Affairs at the University of Virginia. He is in the process of completing his dissertation on the origins of Brown v. Board of Education at Harvard University. He has presented and published on a wide variety of topics related to the Brown decision and his work has earned him a number of grants and fellowships. He is a graduate of Dartmouth and has previously taught at Phillips Academy, Andover.

For more information and disability accommodations, please contact the college relations office at (507) 646-4308.