Kim Pearson, The College of New Jersey
Kim Pearson is an Associate Professor of Journalism and Interactive Multimedia and chair of the African-American
Studies Department at The College of New Jersey . Her articles have appeared in print and online venues
ranging from Black Enterprise to Blogher.com. and Her research on computing diversity and civic engagement
has garnered support from Microsoft and the National Science Foundation.

In 2000, Pearson was named New Jersey ’s CASE Professor of the Year by
the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.

Pearson holds an AB in Politics from Princeton University and an MA in
journalism from New York University . She is a member of the ASALH Advisory Board as well as the
DigitalJournalism Task Force of the National Association of Black Journalists.

Tammy Sanders-Henderson, University of Maryland - College Park
Dr. Tammy Sanders-Henderson is a lecturer in the African American Studies Department at the University of
Maryland at College Park and doctoral candidate in the American Studies Department.  She was a summer
Fellow and took part in Holding Up Both Ends of the Sky: Engendering Africana Studies, A Summer Institute on
Critical Theory, Black Womyn Scholarship and Africana Studies (2002) in the Africana Studies Department at
Cornell University, where she engaged in intense study of constructions of African American motherhood. Dr.
Sanders-Henderson is now the Academic Program Coordinator for the Association for the Study of African
American Life and History. Her scholarly work centers on 19th and 20th century “Black Feminist Thought”  in
the areas of womanhood and motherhood. More specifically, she offers to a critical lens to her examination of
the intersections of social, political, and economic in relation to issues of human reproduction and female
identity.  

Daryl Michael Scott, Howard University
Dr. Daryl Michael Scott is Professor of History at Howard University. He received his Ph.D. in History from
Stanford University. Dr. Scott is a historian who specializes in America since the Civil War.  In particular, he
studies African Americans, Southerners (whites in the American South), race relations, and intellectual history.  
He received the  James A. Rawley Prize of the Organization of American Historians for the best work on race
relations history in the United States (1998).

Selected publications include: Editor, The Mis-Education of the Negro by Carter G. Woodson, The ASALH Press,
2005; Contempt and Pity: Social Policy and the Image of the Black Psyche, 1880-1996, Chapel Hill, University of
North Carolina Press, 1997; “Postwar Pluralism, Brown v Board of Education and the Origins of Multiculturalism,"
Journal of American History, June 2004; "The Politics of Pathology," Journal of Policy History 8 (Winter 1996).
Dr. Scott edited Carter G. Woodson's Appeal, Washington, DC, The ASALH Press, 2008.

Daryl Michael Scott was elected in 2013 to serve a three year term as National President of ASALH.

Arwin D. Smallwood, Ph.D., University of Memphis
Dr. Arwin D. Smallwood is an Associate Professor of Colonial American History at the University of Memphis. He received his Bachelor's and Master's degrees in Political Science and history from North Carolina Central University and his Ph.D. in history from The Ohio State University. His research focuses on mapping African-American, Native-American, and Early American history. It also examines the creolization, or merging, of the three cultures during the colonial period particularly in eastern North Carolina. He primarily writes about the lives of the inhabitants of Indian Woods, North Carolina in Bertie County over its 400 years of recorded history, and how their lives shaped and were shaped by their surrounding landscape. His work documents the long history of the region and explains the intertwined histories of the groups he studies through maps he designs and illustrations and photos he mines from archives, special collections, and private collections.

Barbara Spencer Dunn, Kiamsha Youth Empowerment Organization
First Director of Membership Services, ASALH
Barbara Spencer Dunn is the Executive Director of Kiamsha Youth Empowerment Organization and the first
person in the history of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History to be employed as
Director of Membership Services (July 1, 2004 – January 18, 2008).  Mrs. Dunn is a graduate of Bowie State
University and recipient of several community service awards for her extensive work in communities around the
country.  Mrs. Dunn’s presentations educate people of all cultures, blends generational divides, enlightens
youth, reengages the church community, and cause intellectuals to re-focus their thinking in a way that
reflects Dr. Woodson’s goals in his seminal work, “The Mis-Education of the Negro.”  Mrs. Dunn recruited and
engaged a group of professionals to create a work study guide to provide a document that will not only
engage educators and intellectuals, but will also engage high school youth and families around the world in the
reading of “The Mis-Education of the Negro in 2008 marking the 75th Anniversary of this very important work
by Dr. Woodson.

James B. Stewart
James B. Stewart was elected as President of ASALH in 2009 to serve a 3-year term. He is a Professor Emeritus
at Penn State University and was previously a Professor of Labor Studies and Employment Relations, African and
African American Studies, and Management and Organization. Prior to that time he held the positions of Vice
Provost for Educational Equity and Director of the Black Studies Program Dr. Stewart  has a Ph.D. in Economics
from the University of Notre Dame (1976); an M.A. in Economics (1971); and a B.S. in Mathematics (1969). He
has authored, co-authored, or edited 11 books and over seventy journal articles and over seventy book
chapters. Dr. Stewart has also served as editor of The Review of Black Political Economy. His books include
African Americans and Post-Industrial Labor Markets (1997); African Americans in the U.S. Economy (2005);
Introduction to African American Studies, Transdisciplinary Approaches and Implications (2007); and a collection
of essays about Africana Studies entitled, Flight In Search of Vision (2004). His past leadership experiences
include Presidencies of the National Economic Association and the National Council for Black Studies (NCBS)
(1997-2001). Dr. Stewart has received awards from many organizations including NCBS, the African American
Studies and Research Center (Purdue University), and the ANKH Scientific Institute.   

Dr. William Sturkey, Pennsylvania State University
Dr. William Sturkey is currently a postdoctoral research fellow at Pennsylvania State University and holds an M.A. in African American Studies from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a Ph.D. in African American History from Ohio State University. He has written numerous articles on the black freedom struggle in Mississippi and is currently working on two related book projects. Dr. Sturkey is available to speak about all aspects of the Civil Rights Movement and the post-Emancipation Mississippi freedom struggle, but specializes in the Freedom Summer of 1964. His first book, scheduled for publication in March of 2014, is an edited collection of essays, poems, articles, and testimonials written by the young black students who attended the Mississippi Freedom Schools during the famous 1964 Freedom Summer civil rights campaign. Assembled from archives across the country and released on Freedom Summer’s 50th Anniversary, this forthcoming book will provide an unprecedented view of the responses of Freedom School students to their schools and offer unique ways to think about the role of children and education in the Movement. Dr. Sturkey is an engaging and energetic speaker who is available to give talks on numerous aspects of the Civil Rights Movement, Freedom Summer, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the Mississippi Freedom Schools. at Penn State University and was previously a Professor of Labor Studies and Employment Relations, African and and the Mississippi Freedom Schools.

Ben Vinson, Johns Hopkins University
Ben Vinson, III, is Professor of Latin American History and Director of the Center for Africana Studiesat Johns
Hopkins University.  He is a specialist on issues of race in Latin America, particularly Mexico. Although trained as a
colonial Latin Americanist, his research interests and publications includecontemporary African-American/Afro-
Latino relations, 20th century African-American/Mexican relations, the history of transnationalism, and the
African Diaspora.  His major publications include: Bearing Arms for His Majesty: The Free-Colored Militia in Colonial
Mexico (Stanford University Press, 2001), and Flight: The Story of Virgil Richardson, A Tuskegee Airman in
Mexico (Palgrave-Macmillan, 2004), to name a few. He has also published in newspapers such as the Raleigh
News & Observer, the New York Post, El Aguila del Hudson Valley, the Patriot-News (Harrisburg, PA) and the
San Diego Union Tribune. Professor Vinson received his Ph.D. from Columbia University in 1998 and his A.B.
from Dartmouth College in 1992.  Click here to download complete bio.

Sheila S. Walker
Sheila S. Walker, Ph.D., cultural anthropologist and filmmaker, is Executive Director of Afrodiaspora, Inc., a non-
profit organization that is developing documentaries and educational materials about the global African Diaspora.
She has done fieldwork, lectured, consulted, and participated in cultural events in much of Africa and the
African Diaspora. Her most recent works are the documentary film, Slave Routes: A Global Vision, for the
UNESCO Slave Route Project, and an edited book, Conocimiento desde adentro: Los afrosudamericanos hablan
de sus pueblos y sus historias/Afro-South Americans Speak of their People and their Stories, featuring articles by
Afrodescendants from all of the Spanish-speaking countries of South America. She also edited the volume,
African Roots/American Cultures: Africa in the Creation of the Americas and produced the documentary,
Scattered Africa: Faces and Voices of the African Diaspora. Dr. Walker was Director of the Center for African
and African American Studies, the Annabel Irion Worsham Centennial Professor in the College of Liberal Arts,
and Professor of Anthropology at the University of Texas at Austin. She also was the William and Camille Cosby
Professor in the Humanities and Social Sciences, Professor of Anthropology, and Director of the African Diaspora
and the World Program at Spelman College [website: www.afrodiaspora.net  email: info@afrodiaspora.net ].

Lillian S. Williams, University of Buffalo
Dr. Lillian S. Williams is Chair and Associate Professor of African American Studies at the University at Buffalo, the
State University of New York. Until recently, Dr. Williams was Associate Professor of Women's Studies at the
University at Albany where she also was director of the Institute for Research on Women. She is author of
Strangers in the Land of Paradise: The Creation of an African American Community, Buffalo, New York, 1900-
1940.  Her current research has been on African American women and the club movement and she is
completing a book on Blacks in Green: African Americans in the Girl Scout Movement.

Yohuru Williams, Fairfield University
Dr. Williams is Associate Professor of History at Fairfield University and the Chief Historian at the Jackie Robinson
Foundation in New York City . He is the author of Black Politics/White Power: Civil Rights Black Power and Black
Panthers in New Haven (Blackwell, 2006) and Teaching U.S. History Beyond the Textbook (Corwin, 2008). He
is the editor of A Constant Struggle: African-American History from 1865 to the Present, Documents and Essays
(Kendall Hunt, 2002), and the co-editor of In Search of the Black Panther Party: New Perspectives on a
Revolutionary Movement ( Duke University , 2006), and Liberated Territory: Toward a Local History of the Black
Panther Party ( Duke University , 2009). He also served as general editor for the Association for the Study of
African American Life and History's 2002 and 2003 Black History Month publications, The Color Line Revisited
(Tapestry Press, 2002) and The Souls of Black Folks: Centennial Reflections (Africa World Press, 2003). Dr.
Williams also served as an adviser on the popular civil rights reader Putting the Movement Back into Teaching
Civil Rights.
Dr. Williams' scholarly articles have appeared in The Black Scholar, The Journal of Black Studies, The
Organization of American Historians Magazine of History, Delaware History, Pennsylvania History, and the Black
History Bulletin.

Zachery Williams, Ithaca College
Dr. Zachery Williams is an Assistant Professor of African New World Studies at Ithaca College, and is a minister
with the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church in Ithaca, New York.  Dr. Williams received his Ph. D. in history
from Bowling Green University.  He has worked in the areas of “Black Masculinist Thought” and “Africana Policy
Studies,” and is currently completing a book In Search of the Talented Tenth: Howard University Intellectuals
and the Dilemmas of Race in Academia, 1926-1970.


A’Lelia Bundles
Washington, DC

A’Lelia Bundles currently is at work on her third book, Joy Goddess of Harlem:  The Life and Times of A’Lelia
Walker, a biography of her great-grandmother. Her biography, On Her Own Ground: The Life and Times of
Madam C. J. Walker [Scribner] was named a New York Times Notable Book and received the Letitia Woods
Brown Book Prize from the Association of Black Women Historians.
A former ABC News executive and Emmy award winning producer, Bundles is president of the Madam Walker/A’
Lelia Walker Family Archives and serves on the boards of the Foundation for the National Archives, the
Schlesinger Library at Radcliffe and the Madam Walker Theatre Center. She is a Columbia University trustee.
An engaging speaker and MC, Bundles brings warmth, humor and a strong grasp of history and current events
to her presentations about Madam Walker, entrepreneurship, philanthropy, hair, beauty, the Harlem
Renaissance, media and journalism. She has spoken throughout the U. S. and Europe at conferences, libraries,
book festivals and educational institutions including Harvard University, Spelman College, the National Archives,
the Library of Congress and the Smithsonian Institution. She has appeared on ABC, NBC, CBS, HBO, PBS, BBC,
NPR and C-Span Book TV. Her articles have been published in the New York Times Book Review, O (The Oprah
Magazine), Parade, Essence and Fortune Small Business.
Bundles was graduated from Harvard College and Radcliffe College and received a masters degree from the
Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. She is a member of Phi Beta
Kappa.                                                                                                                                                 
                                          
Dr. Sandra Jowers-Barber
Washington, DC

Dr. Sandra Jowers-Barber is an assistant professor of history at the University of the District of Columbia, where
she coordinates the History Program and directs the Oral History Project at the University of the District of
Columbia (OHP@UDC).  Sandra received both her doctorate in United States History and her MA in Public
History from Howard University.  She teaches courses in United States History, African American History,
Women of the Diaspora and Public and Oral History.  Her scholarship in disability history focuses on researching,
documenting, and interpreting the history of the African American deaf community.  Dr. Jowers is establishing
herself as an expert in this area through her research on the United States District Court for the District of
Columbia case, Miller v. DC Board of Education, a pre-Brown v. Board of Education  case that changed the
educational policy for African American deaf school age children in the District of Columbia
She established the Fannie Lou Hamer/Ella Baker Lecture Series within the History Program to provide a forum
for students and faculty to address issues relating to women of color in a global capacity. This student-driven
series provides opportunities for emerging scholars to discuss and present their research.  Dr. Jowers-Barber is a
member of the American Historical Association, the Association for the Study of African American Life and
History, the Public History Council, the Association of Black Women Historians and Delta Sigma Theta, Inc.

Publications
Her chapter “The Struggle to Educate Black Deaf School Children in Washington, DC” in A Fair Chance in the
Race of Life: Gallaudet University’s Role in Deaf History explores the struggle of African American deaf school
age children for an education in the District of Columbia. This anthology, published by Gallaudet University Press,
celebrates 150 years of deaf education in Washington, D.C. “Educating Washington’s Black Deaf Children in the
Nineteenth Century”,  Dr. Jowers’ chapter in Emerging Scholars Shifting Paradigms: Black Women’s Scholarship,
documents the struggle to establishment a school for the deaf in the nation’s capitol. Her article, “Teaching
the African Diaspora: Using History to Connect People” for the internet publication VidaAfrolatina.com explores
how teaching in an international classroom provides opportunities for students to experience the informative
exchanges that can and should take place between different cultures in an academic arena. Her chapter, “The
African-American Family: Giving the Gift of Roots and Wings” is included in the publication Family Affair: African
American Identity in the 21st Century.  Her biographical entry on the “The National Black Deaf Advocates” is
found in the Encyclopedia of American Disability. She is currently preparing her dissertation, “The End of the
Educational Exile of Washington, D.C. Deaf African American Schoolchildren” for publication.


Rosalyn Terborg-Penn

Rosalyn Terborg-Penn, Ph. D. is University Professor Emerita at Morgan State University, where she served as
Coordinator of the Graduate Programs in History, and taught courses in African American women's history. A co-
founder, and the first National Director, of the Association of Black Women Historians, she has published over
40 articles and seven books, most of which are about African American or African Diaspora Women.  Among
the books are, African American Women in the Struggle for the Vote, 1850 to 1920, Women in Africa and the
African Diaspora: A Reader, and Black Women’s History at the Intersection of Knowledge and Power: ABWH’s
Twentieth Anniversary Anthology. The recipient of numerous honors, in 2008 Terborg-Penn was awarded The
Association for the Study of African American Life and History's, Carter G. Woodson Scholar's Medallion, and in
2010 The Southern History Association’s John Blassingame Prize for Distinguished Scholarship and Mentorship in
African American History.  Her current research is for a book focusing on the connections between African
Diaspora women from the Dutch colonial world and the United States since the twentieth century. In October
2011 Terborg-Penn published an article in the journal, in Black Women Gender and Families.  The title is,
"Migration and Trans Racial/National Identity Re-Formation: Becoming African Diaspora Women."

Rita C. Ricks

Rita Ricks is unlike any other speaker on the speaking circuit, because she coaches as she
speaks. Her wisdom, wit, energy and encouragement are the catalysts which inspire her audiences to renew
the person within. Rita’s dynamic presentations are custom made for each audience and, wherever possible,
she moves through the audience to personally connect with individuals. She shares her life’s experiences. She
uplifts her audiences with a motivating power that awakens all who hear her. She speaks to your spirit.

Michelle Duster
Chicago, Illinois

Michelle Duster is a writer, speaker, personal historian and project manager.  She has created and supported
several projects that preserve and promote the legacy of her great-grandmother, Ida B. Wells – journalist, civil
rights activist and suffragist. In addition to compiling and writing two books, Ida From Abroad (2010) and Ida In
Her Own Words (2008), Michelle manages a scholarship fund for students at Rust College and provides support
for a museum in Holly Springs, Mississippi.  She is co-chair of the Ida B. Wells Commemorative Art Committee
which has commissioned the creation of a monument in Chicago’s Bronzeville neighborhood.  She is on the
Board of Directors of the National Public Housing Museum and the Chicago Area Women’s History Council and is
an advisory board member of the Frederick Douglass Family Foundation.  A native Chicagoan, Michelle earned
her B.A. in Psychology from Dartmouth College, an M.A. in Communications from The New School and
completed graduate level study in film and video production at Columbia College in Chicago.

Gina Page

Gina Paige is the Founder and President of African Ancestry, Inc., a pioneering company with a mission to
transform the way that people view themselves and Africa. African Ancestry uses DNA to cross the treacherous
waters of the Middle Passage in order to trace the ancestry of African-Americans to a country and ethnic group
found in Africa today. You may have seen the company's important work on the PBS series, "African-American
Lives." Through her leadership of African Ancestry, Ms. Paige has fueled her passion for reconnecting African-
Americans to their heritage. Her powerful "reveals," workshops and keynote speeches at academic institutions,
on television shows (including, "My Black is Beautiful," "Conversations with Felicia" and various local news
outlets) and special events have touched thousands of individuals and has changed countless lives. Ms. Paige
has shared the historical relevance of genetic ancestry tracing with corporations and nonprofit organizations
alike. She is a dynamic, accessible speaker who easily translates scientific data into relevant social, political and
historical truth.

Zachery Williams, The University of Akron

Dr. Zachery Williams is an Associate Professor of African American History at The University of Akron. Currently,
he is the Executive Director of The Africana Cultures and Policy Studies Institute, a research/policy think tank
that examines the linkages among Africana cultures and policy development.  Dr. Williams is the author of In
Search of the Talented Tenth: Howard University Intellectuals and the Dilemmas of Race in Academia, 1926-
1970 (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2009) and editor of Africana Cultures and Policy Studies:
Scholarship and the Transformation of Public Policy. (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009).  He also published
articles in the Journal of American Studies of Turkey, the Journal of African American Men,  and the Journal of
Pan African Studies.  Dr. Zachary affiliations: The Black Public Intellectuals, Past and Present (Including Black
Religious Intellectuals),       African American Policy History/Africana Cultures and Policy Studies, Black Men’s
Studies and African American Religious History/Black Theology