I am an Assistant Professor of History at Georgia Southern University, where I teach African American History. I am the incoming Public History Coordinator for the Department of History.
My research interests include women’s history and African American history, especially in Massachusetts. I specialize in the history of Black women’s grassroots activism in Boston. I am also interested in the history of food and its influence on the United States.
I am currently revising my manuscript entitled Just Ordinary Mothers: Black Women’s Grassroots Organizing in Boston, from the Vote to the Busing Crisis. My work examines how upwardly-mobile Black working-class mothers navigated Boston’s civil rights movement and city politics to advance their community’s agenda from 1910 to 1974.
I recently published a book chapter on the work of Barbara Smith, one of the founders of the Combahee River Collective, at the 1977 International Women’s Conference. The book, It’s Our Movement Now, is available through the University of Florida Press.
I published an article entitled “Extra! Extra! Boston Regulates Child Labor in the Streets, 1880-1895” in the Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth. The article examines how the aldermen used their power to ensure that working children received a proper education, were protected from exploitation, and obeyed city laws. In the past decade, scholars have taken an interest in the history of child labor in the United States, as well as the role of the government in regulating the hours and working conditions of child labor. While most government officials attempted to restrict or abolish child labor, Boston’s board of aldermen created a legitimate space for children’s and teen’s wage work between in the 1880s and 1890s.
In Spring 2024, I am teaching Readings in African American History (History 7631). In Fall 2024, I will teach “A Comprehensive History of the United States” (Hist 2110) and “African Americans at Home and Abroad” (History 5258).