Michelle Purdy will speak on her newly released book, Transforming the Elite: Black Students and the Desegregation of Private Schools. This book showcases educational changes for black southerners during the civil rights movement including the political tensions confronted, struggles faced, and school cultures transformed during private school desegregation.
Michelle Purdy is an Assistant Professor of Education in Arts and Sciences and an affiliate faculty member of the Interdisciplinary Program in Urban Studies and the Center on Urban Research and Public Policy at Washington University in St. Louis. With research, teaching, and service commitments to race, culture, and equity in education, her specialties include the history of U.S. education, the history of African American education, the history of school desegregation, critical race theory, and oral history.