African American Experience in Missouri Lecture by Professor Crystal R. Sanders, Emory University and Author "A Forgotten Migration"

Professor Crystal R. Sanders, author of A Forgotten Migration, will be giving SHSMO's African American Experience in Missouri lecture titled: "Separate and Nonexistent: African Americans and Graduate Education During the Era of Legal Segregation." Sanders will speak about the obstacles that Black southerners faced and overcame as they pursued graduate and professional school study during the era of legal segregation. While more than 100 public and private Black colleges existed in the South, training beyond the bachelor’s degree was almost impossible. Before 1936, there were only seven schools in the region—all private institutions—where African Americans could pursue graduate or professional school study.  No Black institution conferred the Ph.D. degree until 1955. While nonblack students could pursue master’s, doctorate, and professional degrees at state-supported flagship institutions in the South, Black students remained shutout of these schools because of racism.  To feign compliance with the legal doctrine of separate but equal, sixteen states authorized the use of public tax dollars for its Black residents to go out-of-state to pursue postbaccalaureate degree programs that were available in-state to white residents.  This lecture explores this educational migration of Black scholars during Jim Crow.

A reception will be held at 6 a.m. Sanders will begin her talk at 6:30 p.m. The public is invited for this free lecture.

About the Speaker: Crystal R. Sanders is an associate professor of African American Studies at Emory University and award-winning author. Previously, she was an Associate Professor of History and the former Director of the Africana Research Center at Pennsylvania State University. Her research and teaching interests include African American History, Black Women's History, and the History of Black Education. She received her BA (cum laude) in History and Public Policy from Duke University and a Ph.D. in History from Northwestern University. 

Sanders is the author of A Forgotten Migration: Black Southerners, Segregation Scholarships, and the Debt Owed to Public HBCUs, published by the University of North Carolina Press in 2024. The book was named a finalist for the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH) Book Prize in 2025. She is also the author of A Chance for Change: Head Start and Mississippi's Black Freedom Struggle published by the University of North Carolina Press in 2016 as part of the John Hope Franklin Series in African American History and Culture.  The book won the 2017 Critics Choice Award from the American Educational Research Association and the 2017 New Scholar’s Book Award from Division F of the American Educational Research Association. The book was also a finalist for the 2016 Hooks National Book Award. Sanders’ work can also be found in many of the leading history journals including the Journal of Southern History, the North Carolina Historical Review, and the Journal of African American History.