Current Employer:University of Illinois-Urbana-Champaign
Professional Background:
• BA, Tougaloo College, Political Science, 1977
• MA, Sangamon State University, 1983, Political Studies
• Ph.D. University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana, 1993, History
• Advanced Certificate in Black Studies, Northeastern University, 1992
• Advanced Certificate in Black Studies, Black Studies Director’s Institute, National Council for Black Studies, University of West Virginia, 1994
•Instructor, Richland Community College, 1977-1983
• Instructor, African American History, University of Missouri at Columbia, 1988-91
• Director of Black Studies Program & Assistant Professor of History, University of Missouri at Columbia, 1991-94
• Assistant Professor of African & African American Studies, Pennsylvania State University, 1994-95
• Associate Professor Department of History, University of Southern Illinois at Edwardsville, 1995 (tenure, 1998)-2001
• Director of the African American Studies and Research Program, University of Illinois at Urbana, 2001-2008
• Associate Professor Departments of African American Studies & History, University of Illinois at Urbana, 2001-Present.
Major Accomplishments:
• Herf Jones Award, Outstanding Political Science Student, Tougaloo College, 1977
• Council of Institutional Cooperation (CIC), Minority Fellowship, 1983-88
• The Frederick Douglass Distinguished African American Citizenship Award, Ruby Cook, Mayor of Brooklyn, Illinois, July 8, 2000.
• Superior Scholarship Award, Illinois State Historical Society, for America’s First Black Town, 2001
• William Bradley Scholar Award, The Counseling Psychology Program at Temple University, 2004
• Visiting Scholar, Barstow Excellence in Teaching in Humanities Seminar at Saginaw Valley State University, Saginaw, Michigan, February 9-10, 2006
Co-winner of the 2009 OAH EBSCOhost America: History and Life Award for the best article in United States history, 2007-2009.
• Fellowship, Center for Advanced Study, University of Illinois, 2010-11
• Organization of American Historians, OAH Distinguished Lectureship Program, 2010-2013
• Nancy Schaenen Endowed Visiting Scholar at the Janet Prindle Institute for Ethics, De Pauw University, February 4-8, 2013.
• List of UIUC Teachers Rated Excellent By Their Students, Fall 2006, AFRO 490. Spring 2010, HIST 575. Fall 2013, AFRO 101. Spring 2014, HIST 300 & HIST 575. Fall 2014, AFRO 474. Spring 2015, HIST 300 & HIST 575. Spring 2016, AFRO 474/HIST 478. Spring 2017, AFRO 474/HIST 478. Fall 2018, AFRO 474/HIST 478.
• Vice President of the National Council for Black Studies, 2006-2008; 2008-2010.
• President of the National Council for Black Studies, 2010-2012; 2012-2014.
• America’s First Black Town, Brooklyn, Illinois, 1830-1915. (Urbana, University of Illinois Press, 2000).
• Sankofa: Racial Formation and Transformation, Toward a Theory of African American History (Pullman, WA, Comparative Ethic Studies, Washington State University, 2000).
Race Struggles. Edited by Ted Koditsheck, Sundiata Keita Cha-Jua, and Helen Neville.
University of Illinois Press, Fall 2009.
Sundiata Keita Cha-Jua, Mary Frances Berry and V.P. Franklin (Eds.), Reparations and Reparatory Justice: Past, Present and Future (University of Illinois Press, April 2024).
• Senior Editor, The Black Scholar 2011-2015
• Associate Editor, Journal of African American History, 2015-2018.
• Editor of 5 special issues of The Black Scholar
• Editor of 1 special issue of the Journal of African American History
• Author/coauthor of 60 scholarly articles
• Bi-weekly Colunmist, RealTalk: A Black Perspective , News Gazette, 2015-Present
• Bi-weekly Podcast, RealTalk: History as a Weapon for Black Liberation, Black Power Media, 2021-P
Previous Service to ASALH:
• I have been a life member since 2001. I have only missed one in-person conference since 1992. I had COVID during the 2022 annual conference in Montgomery, Alabama. I have presented on and chaired scores of panels.
• I cochaired the Academic Program Committee for three years, from 2016-2018.
• I have been a member of the Executive Council for the last 8 years, since 2016.
• I served on the Strategic Planning Committee in 2016, cochaired it from 2017-2018 and have chaired it since 2019-P.
• Since being elected to the Executive Committee I also have served on the Public Commentary Committee (2019-P), being the lead author of many of our statements; the Executive Planning Committee (2018-P); The Links Initiative (2023-P); and the President’s Advisory Committee (2024-P).
• As chair of the Strategic Planning Committee, I chaired ASALH’s social justice initiative for the 108th Annual Conference in Jacksonville, Florida. For that conference, we organized ASALH’s first community forum (200 people attended) and a Banned Book Readout (over 400 attended). I would like to continue ASALH’s movement toward advocacy and activism for the expansion of the teaching of Black history in the public schools and in the Black community.
As chair of Startegic Planning, I lead ASALH’s Freedom School Initiative.
What I Hope to Accomplish as an Executive Council Member of ASALH:
During my tenure as cochair or chair of the Startegic Planning Committee at the initiative of former Executive Council member Gladys Mack, we developed the Organizational Chart which defines ASALH’s structure and directs the flow of policy. We also developed ASALH’s handbook on the the responsibilites and powers of ASALH officers, chairpersons, and clusters and committees. I want to continue to the work of better organizing and making ASALH’s infrastructure more efficient and effective.
If given the opportunity to continue serving ASALH, I hope to bring our Freedom School Initiative to fruition next fall and grow it significantly beyond the branches that comprise the Florida Coalition. We have engaged ASALH members from Jaksonville, Tamba, Manasota, St. Petersburgh, Orlando, South Florida, Miami, Indianapolis, Champaign-Urbana, Illinois. We have created three subcommittees: (1) Curriculum; (2) Pedagogy/Teaching Strategies; and (3) Fundraising.
I also want to complete the launch of ASALH’s blog, The Woodsonian. This will be a public-facing vehicle to disseminate Black Historical Knowledge and to stimulate a broad based discussion of the Black sociohistorical experience.
