New York Fellows Virtual Luncheon

This event is free to registerees. 

Featured Keynote: “Flight, Fight and Freedom: Delinquency and the Construction of Black Masculinity at the Training School for Boys at St. Charles” with Tera Agyepong (ABF Research Professor; Associate Professor of Legal History and African American History, DePaul University)

This presentation will examine how notions of race, age, and black masculinity shaped the evolution of juvenile justice in Illinois. In the early 1900’s, an increasing number of African-American boys at the Training School for Boys at St. Charles were represented through a hyper-masculine trope that embodied danger, criminality, and menacing sexuality, and triggered a punitive turn in institutional policies and state juvenile justice laws beginning in the 1930’s. In communities surrounding the School, residents began to advocate for more punishment and stricter confinement policies. By 1939, hysteria led the Illinois’ General Assembly to mandate the construction of the state’s first maximum security-prison for children, ultimately creating a more punitive juvenile justice system for children nationwide.

The Fellows gratefully recognize: