About this event

Ruth J. Simmons, professor, author, and president emerita of Prairie View A&M, Brown University, and Smith College, will deliver the 2023 National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Jefferson Lecture in the Humanities. 

NEH’s Jefferson Lecture is the highest honor the federal government bestows for distinguished intellectual achievement in the humanities. 

Simmons will deliver her lecture on September 26 at the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture at 7 p.m. EDT. The lecture is free and open to the public and will stream online at neh.gov and on NMAAHC’s streaming channels. Simmons will draw on her more than 50 years’ experience as a scholar, pioneering academic administrator, and changemaker in higher education to speak in her lecture about the role of the humanities in fostering socioeconomic mobility and cultural belonging.  

Tickets to the lecture are free of charge and distributed on a first-come, first-served basis. This program will take place in Heritage Hall. Overflow seating will be available in the Oprah Winfrey Theater.