Lonneke Geerlings presents “The Travels of Rosey E. Pool Through the Deep South, 1959-60”

Posted by fliere on Thursday, September 28, 2017 in Past Events.

“Anne Frank’s Teacher, W.E.B. DuBois’ Confidant: The Travels of Rosey E. Pool through the Deep South, 1959-60”

Dr. Rosey E. Pool was a Dutch Jewish educator, translator and political activist. In her remarkable life, she taught Anne Frank, joined the Resistance during the war, and escaped the Nazi Westerbork transit camp. Moving to London in 1953 with her partner, Isa Isenberg, she befriended W.E.B DuBois and other African American writers and intellectuals and became a European ally of the fight for Civil Rights in the US.

In 1959-1960, Pool visited the US on a Fulbright, where, under the sponsorship of the United Negro College Fund, she toured Historically Black Colleges and Universities to talk about her former pupil Anne Frank and African American poetry. During her lectures she often compared anti-Jewish measures of the 1930s and 1940s with American racial segregation.

Lonneke Geerlings, of the Free University of Amsterdam, is writing Pool’s biography, and will present on Pool’s visit to the American South. Geerlings’ blog on Pool’s travels can be found at:

https://roseyepool.wordpress.com/

Cosponsored by the Vanderbilt University’s programs in Jewish Studies, African-American and Diaspora Studies, and Women’s and Gender Studies, and by Fisk University’s School of Humanities and Behavioral Sciences

Click here to learn more about Lonneke Geerlings.

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