Bob Moses Legacy Conference examines crisis in education

By Dr. Jolivette 

Anderson-Douoning 

Special to the JA

The Bob Moses Legacy Conference was held October 11-12, 2025, at Boston University in Boston, MA. Among the presenters at the Bob Moses Legacy Conference were Professors Steven Hahn, Donald Yacovone, Ruha Benjamin, Noliwe Rooks, Rachel Barklow, William Darity, and Attorney Bryan Stevenson. 

I was asked to facilitate a conversation with Donald Yacovone after his lecture. Professor Yacovone is author of the book “Teaching White Supremacy: America’s Democratic Ordeal and the Forging of Our National Identity”. His work examines our cultural history as a nation that has wrestled with white supremacy since its inception. Yacovone researched school textbooks used to teach children in the United States. He found that the belief in white supremacy has been taught to school children through books primarily published by northern publishing companies.

Yacovone’s work aligns with the theme of the Bob Moses Legacy Conference because it looks at how we arrived at the present moment through an examination of our crisis in education that has led to mass incarceration.

The Bob Moses Legacy Conference, organized by Dr. Janet Moses, wife of the late Bob Moses, civil rights organizer and founder of the Algebra Project, creates space for academics, artists, and activists to gather, listen to one another, have conversations, and think deeply about how We the People should consider our movements in the present moment, when the country is lurching in a direction that favors the few over the many.

I am reminded of something an audience member said to me after I exited the stage with Donald Yacovone. While on stage, I shared that it was Bob Moses who mentored me into an understanding of ‘generational work’, work that we teach our children, grandchildren, and beyond, when blessed to live a long life. The audience member said to me, what you were talking about is ‘eternal vigilance’. To him, generational work meant that we must always pay attention to what is happening. We must study history, look for patterns of behavior in people who do NOT believe in or practice participatory democracy. It is those people who presently reject and deny rights to We the People, and we must engage in as many ways possible to make sure that all people have a voice and can use it in ways that allow all to learn, be liberated, and live lives of dignity.