Jewish Refugee Scholars at Black Colleges, with Dr. Lillie Edwards

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In 1933, the Nazi German government passed legislation excluding Jews from working as university professors. No longer able to work in their own country, they found difficulty finding a welcome at academic institutions abroad, owing largely to xenophobia and antisemitism. Unexpectedly, a significant number of these scholars found their way to historically Black colleges and universities in the United States.

Dr. Lillie Edwards will discuss this episode in history, focusing on its impact on both the refugee professors and their students, and contextualizing it in the realities of the Jim Crow South, where most of these institutions of higher learning were located.

Dr. Lillie Edwards served as the founding Director of Pan-African Studies and as Director of American Studies at Drew University before retiring in 2016. While at Drew, she received awards for university faculty service and for excellent and distinguished teaching in the College of Liberal Arts and the Caspersen School of Graduate Studies. Prior to working at Drew, she taught at DePaul University, UNC-Chapel Hill, and Earlham College. As a public intellectual committed to bringing African American studies to adult audiences, Dr. Edwards lectures and consults with corporations, libraries and archives, historical societies and museums, faith-based communities, and school districts.

Program made possible, in part, by Richard Krieg, in honor of David Medlin.