Black Women’s Legacies in Massachusetts with Dr. Alexandria Russell at NA Historical Society

Dr. Alexandria Russell, Executive Director of the Boston’ Women’s Heritage Trail, will speak on Massachusetts memorials to Black women in a FREE talk at the North Andover Historical Society. Presented by the North Andover African American History Committee and supported by a grant from the North Andover Cultural Council.
Local communities have been fervent memorializers of African American achievement in the United States for centuries. Dr. Alexandria Russell, author of the book Black Women’s Legacies, Public History Sites Seen & Unseen, will discuss how they established a national infrastructure of named memorials during the Jim Crow era, and 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.