African American Experience in Missouri Lecture Series

Explore Missouri's past and prepare for the future through the African American Experience in Missouri lecture series. A collaboration of the State Historical Society of Missouri's Center for Missouri Studies and the University of Missouri Division of Inclusion, Diversity, and Equity, it is designed to offer the community opportunities to reach a new understanding of present-day Missouri by learning about the history of African Americans within the state.

Keona K. Ervin, history professor at the University of Missouri in Columbia, and SHSMO executive director Gary Kremer, both Center for Missouri Studies fellows known for research on African American history, are curating the series to ensure that top scholars in the field are a part of the continuing exploration of the lives of African Americans in Missouri's past.

On Demand Programs

Diane Mutti Burke, author of On Slavery’s Border: Missouri’s Small-Slaveholding Households, examines the lives of African-Americans who were enslaved in Mid-Missouri. The small-scale system of slavery practiced in the region created living and working conditions that compromised the strength of enslaved families and communities and increased the possibilities for physical and psychological abuse, yet, at the same time, enhanced opportunities to resist.