Following the end of the Civil War, Jim Crow laws enacted legal racial segregation. Black fraternal orders countered this racial oppression by fostering mutual aid, opening opportunities for female as well as male leadership, and pushing back against segregation and disenfranchisement. 

On Tuesday, July 9th at 5:30pm join us for the Allen and Gertrude McCue Lecture featuring Harvard professor and Mount Desert summer resident Theda Skocpol. Professor Skocpol will share her research presentation "Pushing Against Jim Crow: The Amazing World of African American Fraternal Orders", covering the history and stories of the largest Black orders and some less-well-known groups. This is an in-person program with online viewing available. Registration required, light refreshments/reception immediately following.

Despite obstacles of slavery, poverty, and segregation, African Americans were super organizers and joiners of fraternal orders – as Theda and her co-authors documented in our 2006 book "What a Mighty Power We Can Be." Recently, Theda has returned to this research – to document more than 80 Black fraternal orders for which she has collected old documents and beautiful badges. Theda's lecture will cover the history of the largest Black orders and share stories of some less-well-known groups.

Theda Skocpol (PhD, Harvard, 1975) is the Victor S. Thomas Professor of Government and Sociology at Harvard University. At Harvard, she has served as Dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (2005-2007) and as Director of the Center for American Political Studies (2000-2006). Skocpol's work covers an unusually broad spectrum of topics including both comparative politics (States and Social Revolutions, 1979) and American politics (Protecting Soldiers and Mothers: The Political Origins of Social Policy in the United States, 1992). Skocpol's research focuses on U.S. social policy and civic engagement in American democracy, including changes since the 1960s.

The Allen and Gertrude McCue Lectures are made possible by a grant from the McCue Family to bring high quality speakers to Southwest Harbor continuing a tradition that started many years ago at the Claremont Hotel.

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