Sylvia and Irving Margolis Lecture on the Jewish Experience

A Pogrom in Chicago: Antisemitism and Free Speech in Modern America

with James Loeffler, Johns Hopkins University

Can we stop antisemitic hate speech before it turns violent? In 1949 a five-day pogrom rocked Chicago and led to a revolutionary First Amendment ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court. In this lecture, historian James Loeffler explores this forgotten episode and its meaning for the questions of public protest, civil rights, and violence that we face today.

Co-sponsored by the Department of Religious Studies.