Student Symposium

The Museum of Old Newbury is pleased to partner with The Governor's Academy for the fourth installment of its popular "Student Symposium" series.  The November 7 program will begin at 7:00pm, with a reception preceding at 6:30.  Come and see the impressive historical interpretations of young scholars Karlaes Morales and Hee Won Youn, whose research projects are outlined below.  The program is free and open to the public, but space is limited; contact us at 978-462-2681 or info@newburyhistory.org to reserve your seat.

"The Tulsa Race Riot of 1921" by Karlaes Morales '19

Three hundred or more black citizens were killed and millions of dollars of black-owned homes and businesses were destroyed in a fiery conflict in Tulsa, OK, in the spring of 1921. What happened ? Why is it that post-1950 "race riots" have been so much chronicled and critically examined while the Tulsa "Race Riot" has been ignored in history if not erased from textbooks? The Tulsa conflict was much deadlier (e.g., 34 killed in Watts in 1965, 43 killed in Detroit in 1967, 63 killed in the 1992 rioting sparked by Rodney King's beating by Los Angeles police).  Mass graves in Tulsa, long neglected and nearly forgotten, hold the remains of no one knows how many persons. What else of that terrible episode has long been buried?

Karlaes Morales of Jersey City, NJ, a senior at The Governor's Academy, enjoys political science, economics, physics, and wrestling. He credits a substitute teacher in his middle school for first telling him of this long ignored episode in America's history.

Agassiz: Developer of 19th-Century Scientific Racism" by Hee Won Youn '19

Contemporaneous with Charles Darwin stood Louis Agassiz, a Swiss-American naturalist and professor of natural science at Harvard University whose studies of fish and glaciers made major contributions to evolutionary science. But Agassiz and Darwin proposed rival theories of evolution, and their disagreement stemmed from their different conceptions of "race." Ms. Youn examines that critical point of contention, seeking to understand how Agassiz came to his racial views and how his views came to shape American society in the late 19th century.

Hee Won Youn, a senior at The Governor's Academy, most enjoys the sciences, especially chemistry, and foreign languages. A South Korean who resides in Seoul, she speaks three other languages and is now learning Spanish, too. She sings with the Academy's chorus, designs jewelry and makes ceramics, and plays the haegeum (a traditional Korean string instrument).