Black Classicists in North America
Spring 2024, Lillan Massey Building lobby
About the Exhibition
This exhibition celebrates eighteen Black classicists who worked in north America through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Many north American colleges and universities – including the University of Toronto – had Greek and Latin at the core of their original curricula. These men and women made significant contributions to the study and teaching of these languages and of the Greek and Roman world, often in the face of formidable structural barriers. By doing so they strengthened the tradition of black intellectualism, widened the opportunities for their students, and advanced the field as a whole.
The exhibition was assembled and curated by Michele Valerie Ronnick, Distinguished Professor at Wayne State University. The exhibition has been displayed in a number of universities across the US and the UK: this is the first time that it has appeared in Canada. Its presence in Toronto is the result of a collaboration between Professor Ronnick and, in Toronto, Professors Ronald Charles (Religion) and Ben Akrigg (Classics).