As William Faulkner wrote, “The past is never dead; it isn’t even past.” Epigenetic research is beginning to show that the traumas of generations ago live on in the DNA of current generations. Native Americans and African Americans today carry deep memories of the genocide, slavery, and dehumanization to which generations of their forebears were subjected. As for the perpetrators of trauma, their misdeeds are mythologized, misremembered, erased, or denied by their descendants. Revealing the truth of the past is an important step in healing and moving forward toward the Beloved Community. Samuel Lemon will share from his experiences of uncovering and publishing the truth about a gross miscarriage of justice in the 1930s that grows out of a racial myth — and one still at work today in police encounters with boys and men of color.

Leader(s)

Samuel M. Lemon, Ed.D., is a Quaker and the Director of the Master of Science in Organizational and Strategic Leadership at Neumann University. He holds a Doctorate in Education from the University of Pennsylvania. A member of the League of Women Voters of Pennsylvania and of Providence Meeting, he is an ardent proponent of social justice.

“The Case That Shocked the Country” (book cover)

Sam’s books include: Go Stand Upon the Rock (2014) a fact-based Civil War-era novel about his maternal ancestors’ experiences as runaway slaves, fleeing to Media, where they were given refuge at Providence Meeting, and The Case That Shocked the Country: The Unquiet Deaths of Vida Robare and Alexander McClay Williams – the youngest person in Pennsylvania to die in the electric chair for a crime he did not commit (2017), which grew out of 30 years of research. Sam seeks to have this conviction overturned by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.

A limited number of The Case That Shocked the Country, Sam’s most recent book, will be available for sale and signing after the lecture.

Travel directions to Pendle Hill. Click to view the flyer.