Dr. Jerome E. Morris
E. Desmond Lee Endowed Professor of Urban Education at the University of Missouri-St. Louis
Jerome serves as the Principal Investigator and Director of the Center for Communally-Bonded Research, also in St. Louis. His interdisciplinary and empirically-based scholarship examines the institutional structure and culture in schools, provides innovative conceptual frameworks to study marginalized communities, and cultivates meaningful partnerships with communities and schools.
In 2025, he was elected President of the American Educational Research Association (AERA) for 2026-2027. AERA is the largest educational research in the world with more than 25,000 members from 96 countries. A transdisciplinary scholar, Jerome has been at the forefront of highlighting the centrality of the U.S. South in African-Americans’ experiences, examining public school desegregation, and rebuilding viable urban communities and schools. He was awarded the prestigious Lyle M. Spencer Research Award from the Spencer Foundation to investigate the development of his theory of Communally-bonded Schooling. Morris’ groundbreaking book, Central City’s Joy and Pain: Solidarity, Survival, and Soul in a Birmingham Housing Project is now available for purchase. He is also the author of Troubling the Waters: Fulfilling the Promise of Quality Public Schooling for Black Children (Teachers College Press).
Jerome has published extensively in leading research and practitioner venues such as the American Educational Research Journal, Teachers College Record, Educational Researcher, Review of Research in Education, Educational Policy, Urban Education, Kappan, and The Conversation.
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Praise for Central City’s Joy and Pain:
Jerome E. Morris’s voice is at once beautiful and inspiring, one from the scholar-activist tradition of Black America. This work powerfully illustrates how Black People—even as we have been consigned to and ghettoized in indecent ‘public housing’—found ways to survive oppressive, systemic racism and poverty—and, in the case of Dr. Morris, even carve out a pathway to a decent life. Central City’s Joy and Pain reminds us, however, of the need for revolutionary change, toward the freedom of all oppressed people.
~Elaine Brown, author of A Taste of Power and The Condemnation of Little B; former leader of the Black Panther Party
Morris provides readers with a powerful historical and personal journey through Central City that is captivating reading. He does a phenomenal job of not only highlighting the depths of structural racism and the accumulation of disadvantage but also of documenting the sheer will, determination, strength, and resolve of a people to survive and thrive. Central City’s Joy and Pain is a page turner that is informative and inspiring.
~Tyrone C. Howard, Professor of Education and Pritzker Family Endowed Chair, University of California, Los Angeles
Central City’s Joy and Pain is not just a story about events that took place several decades ago but is also well connected to the systems that remain in place for the perpetuation of Black oppression. Jerome E. Morris has done a great job of sharing his experiences with the broader community, and readers—in not only Birmingham and the South, but well beyond—will be enriched by the experiences and insights conveyed here.
~Charles Connerly, professor emeritus of urban and regional planning, University of Iowa
Buy on Amazon, Bookshop, University of Georgia Press, or wherever books are sold.
Stay in Touch!
Email: jemorris68@gmail.com