An Interview with Jean-Pierre Brutus – Part II – Lifting the Veil

Jean-Pierre Brutus returns this week to continue the discussion with Bev and Lady Elaine on Reparations. Jean-Pierre is a senior counsel in the Economic Justice Program at the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice. Prior to joining the Institute, Jean-Pierre worked at Bronx Legal Services, where he represented indigent Bronx tenants facing eviction in various courts and administrative proceedings. Jean-Pierre is a 2007 graduate of Georgetown University, graduating with a major in Sociology and a minor in African American Studies. As a graduate of the JD/PhD program at Northwestern University, Jean-Pierre is a graduate of Northwestern Pritzker School of Law and he earned his PhD in African American Studies from The Graduate School at Northwestern University. As a law student, Jean-Pierre served as a senior articles editor for the Journal of Law and Social Policy. As a PhD student, he also served as an assistant editor of the Journal of Africana Religions. Jean-Pierre wrote a dissertation that examined the origins of black politics outside of the traditional public sphere to conceptualize the counter-public of black politics as bifurcated into a civil and uncivil black politics.

1. An Interview with Jean-Pierre Brutus – Part II
2. An Interview with Jean-Pierre Brutus – Part I
3. An Interview with Christina Sasso – Prejudice and Racism
4. An Interview with Kira Dineen from the DNA Today Podcast
5. An Interview with Dr. Linda Caldwell Epps and Cat Hogan – Part II

“The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character – that is the goal of true education.” ~ Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

The mission of Friday Truehart Consultants is to remedy the omissions of history and the miseducation of slavery in the United States, and to acknowledge and correct how both directly impact and continue to shape the future.

In 2019 Elaine Buck and Beverly Mills formed Friday Truehart Consultants to bring awareness that there is more to American history than the single Anglo narrative. Because of the egregious omission of the African American narrative in our nation’s history books, Friday Truehart Consultants strives to see African American history built into K-12 curriculum throughout the State, and not consigned to one month out of the year during Black History Month.

Named after Beverly’s enslaved fourth great grandfather, Friday Truehart, the firm provides consulting services to schools, community groups and others who seek a better understanding of the American slave system. Friday Truehart Consultants is eager to work with educators who wish to partner in bringing a fuller educational awareness of African American history to their schools, and by doing so become change agents in their schools and communities.

Last but certainly not least, because of the numerous “aha!” moments Beverly and Elaine experienced while researching their book, If These Stones Could Talk: African American Presence in the Hopewell Valley, Sourland Mountain, and Surrounding Regions of New Jersey, Friday Truehart Consultants will also offer genealogy services to people interested in uncovering traces of their history and perhaps answer questions that have long gone unanswered.

Follow us on Facebook to read our weekly “Friday Memories” blog, and learn more about our work to uncover New Jersey history, stone by stone, in this New York Times article!