Above All Else, Tell the Truth: Teaching Black History Today

Special lecture in commemoration of 50+ Years of Africana Studies at the University of Tennessee by Dr. Hasan Kwame Jeffries. Dr. Jeffries is an associate professor of history in the Department of History at The Ohio State University, where he teaches, researches, and writes about the African American experience from a historical perspective. He has chronicled the civil rights movement in the ten episode Audible Original series “Great Figures of the Civil Rights Movement,” and has told the remarkable story of the original Black Panther Party in Bloody Lowndes: Civil Rights and Black Power in Alabama’s Black Belt, which has been praised as “the book historians of the black freedom movement have been waiting for.” Jeffries has collaborated on several public history projects, including serving as the lead scholar and primary scriptwriter for the $27 million renovation of the National Civil Rights Museum at the Lorraine Hotel in Memphis, Tennessee, the site of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Hasan’s commitment to teaching “Hard History” led him to edit Understanding and Teaching the Civil Rights Movement, a collection of essays by leading civil rights scholars and teachers that explores how to teach civil rights history accurately and effectively, and to host the podcast, “Teaching Hard History,” a production of the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Learning for Justice division. Dr. Jeffries has received numerous awards, including Ohio State’s highest commendation for teaching – the Ohio State Alumni Award for Distinguished Teaching,