[photo credit: The Huntington]
On Feb. 18, Sonya Posmentier, associate professor of English at New York University, will examine this history in a free public lecture at The Huntington Library’s Rothenberg Hall.
The 6 p.m. talk, “Poetic Education and the Practice of Freedom,” challenges assumptions about how Americans learn to engage with poetry.
“We often think of learning to read poetry as something that happens through classroom lectures and textbooks,” the event description notes.
“Instead, a parallel pedagogy was unfolding during the Mississippi summer project of 1964.”
Posmentier’s lecture will explore how Freedom Schools centered Black traditions of poetry, song and folklore; Black interpretive strategies; and Black alternative teaching practices “in the context of fierce battles over who gets to learn, how, and where.”
The Mississippi Freedom Summer established Freedom Schools serving students across the state.
“Through poems, short-stories, essays, and even theatrical productions, Freedom School students shared their feelings toward Jim Crow segregation laws and practices,” according to Mississippi History Now.
Posmentier is author of “Cultivation and Catastrophe: The Lyric Ecology of Modern Black Literature,” which received the William Sanders Scarboro Award from the Modern Language Association.
The lecture is the Ridge Lecture, part of The Huntington’s 2025-2026 “Active in the Archives” series.
Doors open at 5:30 p.m.
A reception follows at 7 p.m.
“Poetic Education and the Practice of Freedom” will run on Wednesday, Feb. 18 from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m. Rothenberg Hall, The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens, 1151 Oxford Road, San Marino.For more information, call (626) 405-2100 or visit https://www.huntington.org/event/poetic-education-and-practice-freedom.Tickets: Free with reservation.
