Register here for what promises to be an informative presentation by author and historian Dr. Hettie V. Williams!

Black women played a crucial role in the Civil Rights Movement in New Jersey. These leaders forged interracial, cross-class, and cross-gender alliances locally and nationally, and were key to securing progressive civil rights legislation in New Jersey.

This fascinating history is the subject of a presentation to be given by Professor Hettie V. Williams, author of The Georgia of the North: Black Women and the Civil Rights Movement in New Jersey. Durand-Hedden House & Garden and the South Orange-Maplewood Community Coalition on Race are pleased to host Dr. Williams at The Woodland Parlor in Maplewood on Sunday afternoon, January 9, to discuss this ground-breaking research.

Dr. Williams explores how and why New Jersey’s Black leaders, community members, and women in particular, affected major civil rights legislation, legal equality, and integration a decade before Brown v. Board of Education. In this interesting analysis, the Civil Rights Movement began in New Jersey, and Black women were central to this struggle.

The presentation will be followed by a guided discussion among the audience.

Dr. Williams is Associate Professor of African American History at Monmouth University, New Jersey. She received the Eugene Simko Faculty Leadership Award, the PGIS Award in Social Justice, and is a co-founder of the Monmouth University Race Conference. She is the president of the African American Intellectual History Society.

The Maplewood Division of Arts & Culture has generously donated the use of The Woodland Parlor, 60 Woodland Avenue, Maplewood. The lecture will begin at the Woodland Parlor at 1:15 pm; doors open at 1:00 pm. Light refreshments will be served at Durand-Hedden House, 523 Ridgewood Road, Maplewood, following the talk.