Gilder Lehrman Institute Teacher Seminar Online:Ida B. Wells, Jim Crow, and Women’s Rights in Partnership with the Reginald F. Lewis Museum

Live Zoom Sessions: Monday, July 21- Thursday, July 24, 2025 | 11 am – 1 pm

Registration Deadline | Thursday, July 17, 2025 | Admission: $25 for Teacher Seminar Program

This seminar explores the history of African Americans between 1865 and the 1930s by taking a close look at the life of anti-lynching crusader Ida B. Wells. Most known for her crusade against lynching, she was a social justice warrior whose long career as a civil rights activist illustrates the many challenges faced by African Americans during her lifetime. This seminar uses Wells’ life as a focal point for understanding not only anti-lynching, but also the rise of Jim Crow, the history of early Black civil rights organizations and women’s clubs, the Great Migration, the African American experience during the World War I era, and the emergence of New Negro leadership.

The Reginald F. Lewis Museum will present two online sessions during this seminar examining the last documented lynchings of Matthew Williams (1931) and George Armwood (1933) from the museum’s Lynching in Maryland installation. This new exhibition seeks to honor the victims of the 38 documented racial terror lynchings that occurred in the state of Maryland between 1854 and 1933. Dr. Charles Chavis, Jr. and Dr. Brian Morrison are the participating guest scholars for these two online sessions. Dr. Chavis will discuss his latest book, The Silent Shore: The Lynching of Matthew Williams and the Politics of Racism in the Free State.

Mia Bay is the lead scholar for the Gilder Lehrman Institute Teacher Seminar Online:Ida B. Wells, Jim Crow, and Women’s Rights. Bay’s works include Ida B Wells, The Light of Truth: The Writings of An Anti-Lynching Crusader. Mia Bay is the Paul Mellon Professor of American History at the University of Cambridge.