As the US roils with increasing anxiety over self-determination, today’s college campuses remain an epicenter of organizing activity that has historically galvanized our country’s movement for racial justice. 

Dr. Michael Lomax, President and CEO of United Negro College Fund, will lead a conversation that places us at select moments in time to connect “then and now,” when Jewish academics fleeing Nazi Germany worked alongside committed Black students across America’s Historically Black Colleges and Universities to support them in pursuit of intellectual achievement and fulfilling careers. 

This panel discussion will turn its attention as well to today’s vibrant student activism advancing across US college campuses, and explore the work of organizations steeped in pursuit of racial and ethnic justice. 

This program will feature clips from the PBS documentary From Swastika to Jim Crow, providing historical context to enhance a lively and engaging evening that examines how movements for racial equity and liberation have rooted themselves in college campuses, the Jewish culture, and youth organizing over time. 

Program attendees are invited to arrive early or stay late to view our current exhibition, This Light of Ours: Activist Photographers of the Civil Rights Movement. 

Jewish Scholars and Black Colleges is part of the Skirball Cultural Center's ongoing work to highlight connections between Black and Jewish Americans and is made possible by a generous grant from the Karsh Family Foundation.