An organization founded in 1979 with four core organizational goals to establish a Network Among membership to promote black women in the profession, to disseminate information and opportunities in the field, and to suggestions concerning Research Topics and repositories we are organized and has grown from a handful of women in the 1970s to an organization that counts hundreds of members. We stand on the shoulders of our founders as we come together to share our work with one another, to fellowship, and to remind other why we have all chosen to dedicate our to correcting the narrative, to telling their stories and, to save their names. I have the honor of serving as the moderator of todays conversation. With three Living Legends jesus. Pioneering and historians of black women. Sit with us today. Our conference is shining threads and heavy loads where we and when we exhale black women making history and all attempt introduce each of these iconic who have left indelible marks on the field of American History by centering the lives of black women. We have limited so i apologize in advance for paring down all the accolades. Paula giddings is the elizabeth a woodson 1922 professor emerita of Africana Studies at college. She the author of when and where i enter the impact of black women race and sex in america in search of sisterhood, Delta Sigma Theta and the challenge the black sorority movement. Im waiting the sound that that. I knew had to get that moment. Before we all get a little louder. Lets keep and of course of course the biography of antilynching activist ida b wells. Ida, a sort among lions, which won the Los Angeles Times book prize for biography and was the final list for the National Book critics circle award. Ida was deemed one of the best books of 2008 by the Washington Post and Chicago Tribune and earned the first inaugural John Hope FranklinResearch Center book award presented by the Duke University libraries. The book also won the leticia woods brown book award from the association of black women historians and we offer the 2022 award later today evelyn brooks higginbotham is the Victor Thomas professor of history and of african and African American at harvard university. Shes been a tenured member at harvard since 1993, and she has chaired the department of african and African American studies and the department of history. She is the founder and coordinator of acs departments. Social Engagement Initiative an innovative pedagogy combines rigorous Academic Work with on the ground experience. Professor higginbotham served as the National President of the association. The study of African American life and history from 2016 to 2022, just 22, 2021 and 21. Yes, maam. A pioneering scholar, africanamerican womens history. She is the author of the prize winning book righteous discontent the Womens Movement in, the black baptist church, 1882 1920. Shes also the classic african history text from to freedom, which First Published by John Hope Franklin in 1947. Among her most notable awards, the 2014 National Humanities medal from president obama. Deborah gray white is the board governors distinguished professor of and professor of womens and gender studies at rutgers university. There should be ru because theres so many. Rutgers is strong. The house today. During her more than three decades at rutgers, she taught and mentored students codirected the black atlantic race nation and gender project. At Rutgers Center for historical analysis served as a Research Professor at the Rutgers Institute for Research Women and shared the department. So we have three chairs sitting front of us. Professor white is the author of i a woman female slaves in the plantation south a Field Generator and shifting text. That continues to be taught in classrooms and referenced just about every book. Probably that written in this room on black history. Her other monographs include. Too heavy a load. Black women in defense of themselves 1894 to 1994. Lost in the usa. American from the promise keepers to million mom. March and the three volume edition of scarlet and black professor white. Also edited telling histories. Black women historians in ivory tower, a compilation 17 personal narratives by leading black women historian. She has received fellowships from the guggenheim foundation, Woodrow WilsonInternational Center for for scholars fellowship, the aclu, the American Association of university women. The ford foundation. The list goes on. What id to do before we begin conversation is to take a moment to and recognize these three scholars. All right. I think theres going to be a lot of that smiling clapping, maybe even some tears. Its really an honor to have this conversation with three people, all of whom have touched my life personally at different moments and touched the lives of probably just about everyone in this room. And so were going to have a conversation session today. Much in kind of the vein of our opening Plenary Session, something that i hope all of us can chew on and meditate on and engage in. And so since we came together this conference, weve talked about origin stories and many of us in this room, we know the three of you as iconic historians, but we dont necessarily what compelled you to become writers, researcher, professors, administrators. And can i ask you, each of you, to share a little bit your sort of in origin story. And so now i get to pick who goes first or does anybody want to jump out front . Ill jump out. Jump in. Im the oldest. So my origin story, you know, grew up in a family dedicated to black history. My father worked with cartagena, woodson from the 1930s until was and in 1950. He i you you know, i would go with him to the association for the study of africanamerican life and history. I knew black history when. I went to college. I knew black history when i went graduate school at the. At howard. At Howard University. To get my masters. I found out i didnt know black history. I sat in a classroom with rosalind turpin and rosalind penn. We were in professor donald taylors class and we were talking about what our Research Projects were. And at that time i was working on a man named alpheus hinton. And alpheus was a scholar. He was the son of a very person. In fact his mother was a very famous, but he he was on the left. And so i was working that. And all of a sudden when ross talked about her work, she talked about people i knew historic and many, many people i didnt know historically. But i just want you to think your generation you come to graduate knowing about women in history you come to graduate school with the word gender in your mind that, word gender wasnt even in my vocabulary. And when i heard the name Church Terrell and rb wells and harriet tubman, i knew those names. But those women were race women. I know any they had racial consciousness. I didnt know anything about gender consciousness. And here was was talking about these women who were fighting for the vote. She transformed life. And just very quickly, she and sharon harley, they decided, as we were graduate students, that nobody else was doing this. We didnt have professors that doing this. So they decided that graduate students would put together this called afroamerican women struggles and images. So that came out in 1978. I was still in graduate school by then in a ph. D. Program. But i always say this to my graduates and im saying this to graduate students here today. Those of you, the millions of you who have worked with the Deborah Gray White that. You know, that you shape the field, you know, we literally began this thing called black womens as graduate. You know, these were our dissertations. Thats what youre doing now. You still field defining. Ill id like to say that you know oh i had that i knew black history. I didnt. I am im going to plug the memoir that im in the process of writing. But i grew up in Housing Project in in new york city. And i just social studies and then when i got into high school, i still like social studies. And i had a teacher who said, you know, the textbook was didnt seem to be. She gave me some books and she said, you know, if you like history so much, it was in American History. Here, here are some books. Talk about American History. And thats when i realized that history was not a set of dates. And it wasnt just some people, you know, memorizing. And i mean, i those books up. I just, i devoured them. And every time she gave me more, i just devoured them. I would go home, you know, id stay and i, you know i read them and. So in college and college, it was one of those things. It was so late sixties, early seventies. They didnt have africanAmerican History or studies. I was one of those people who protested to make sure to bring black studies into the the universe city. But still, the idea of being a professor i thought maybe id just be a a high school teacher, you know, because i had been so inspired by the teacher who gave me all those history books. And i get a job. I got a job, a fifth grade teacher, which i started a one september, and by november i was putting in my applications for graduate. I was like, i cant do this. And so why i. I didnt know what a professor did my my powers, my parents were. You know, my mother graduated from high school. Something im writing about now. My grandparents were sharecroppers and they were illiterate. So my mother was, you know, she graduated from from high school. My father had a sixth grade education. They didnt know anything about what a professor did. All i knew about being a professor was they dont work. They dont work as. Obviously, i was, you know. But they dont have to work from 9 to 3 or from 9 to 5. And they seem to control over their time. So i didnt have anybody giving me a business to run or anything. So im like, well, this is what ill do. Ill be a professor. Long story short, i get to graduate school and writing the my dissertation and it happened to be the early seventies time on the cross and and Herbert Gutmann the black family and slavery and freedom and of course jordan roll all his books are coming out and ill read his stuff and im like a queer where really black women theyre over the place, but they are no place. And i thought the interpret was wrong. So i had a dissertation topic i was going to write about. Africanamerican women in sports because thats that was also my passion and but i didnt i wrote arent i a woman and theres whole story about that. But thats how it happened. And for those of you who dont know, it barely the trash can. So. We just got together night and. And one of the things we said to each and talked about was how proud we are of all of you. Yeah listening to these papers of this and and its certainly been a way to measure how far, you know, we have come. I remember. Your point deborah when i read when when and where enter was a manuscript. My mentor who taught me great deal about writing in journalism because im a journalist and she read the manuscript and was already at the copy editors. She said you can publish this. She said youll, be a laughing stock if you publish this book. Nobody is interested in an entire book about black women. And look where we are now. Right. My origin story is really as a my parents too were involved in civil rights from yonkers, new york. And my father was one of the founders of core. So it was a political family. And i remember vividly when i just about 13 years old, and that was year of the freedom riots. And from that moment on, when saw what happened to those riders and to the courage and especially when young people took on the rides and they werent that much older, i was and i remember asking myself well, what is the power of this called race . What is it . What is it that could this kind of courage that can make say that they will die . Remember those young, you know, young men and women, right. Riding out wills, oh. And what is it about that makes such hatred so so that has always been the inquiry. That was always my head as as began to come of age and. I came of age actually. My beginnings are really in the black arts movement. After howard i graduated from howard universe city, went right into publisher random house and was in this world that always wanted to be in this world writers. So the people i hung out with, i was than most of them. But the people i knew was Toni Cade Bambara and nikki and audrey lord. Toni morrison came to random house while i was there and we became fast friends after she asked. I was a secretary at random house when i first came and she asked me to and some others to help her type a a manuscript that she was preparing. And what we didnt know at the time that we were typing the bluest eye. But that that was my world left random for Howard University press, where i met others and where i met a lot of historians. Charles harris, who started Howard University, was a visionary, was one the first black editors in publishing and was a visionary about publishing history. And so i first met John Hope Franklin there. I met many others on his reading, all that that generation. Ralph, that generation of of of scholars. And after howard working at a news magazine called encore magazine on American World wide news, the first black news magazine where went to put up and this and this inquiry was inquiry was always there what is this thing. Went to paris for encore magazine i was the paris bureau chief which meant the paris bureau was me and whatever stringers i could find. But i thought if i went to europe and i went to africa, i did a lot of reporting africa that i would this would help me answer some those questions if i was going to the origins of whiteness and of race blackness and but so the way i was trying to answer these questions was through these different jobs. But then i came back from paris and was asked to by a professor Bennett College in South Carolina, was preparing some volumes of black womens work for the bicentennial and asked me. If i would write some manuscripts or manuscript on the arts. Black women in the arts and black women in civil rights, and particularly with the black women in civil rights. This is when i decided this is when it really occurred to me something sort of opened up and said, you know, im going to find these in history. And that really begins that journey, that part of the journey of of a historic call, a perspective. I didnt know very much history at the time i, i started and one of the first important books i did read was rosalind turbo pens and shown harleys book for american women in images. A red bell hooks was very influential influential at that moment. And and more that that began my journey of history history. All of you. Spent time in the archives and much has been sort of written or stated these kinds of spaces spaces arent always warm or inviting to those of us engaged in black womens history in particular. And im wondering you could talk a little bit about your experi science, maybe a one single experience in the archives maybe to offer some advice, especially im thinking to junior colleagues in the room who are actively beginning their work in the archive. But maybe to talk a little bit about what it means to be in the archive doing black womens history history. Well, for me and its going to be a good story, the good story. Just just the back up. I you know before i became a college professor, i was a Junior High School teacher and a high school teacher. And from junior high and high school, i went to the maryland Spingarn Center and i was there manuscript, Research Associate and i was there. You know, i would work with these scholars who would come in and they would say, you need to go to graduate school, but i work with papers, okay . I work with papers. And so i a sense of just wonderful collections that were in maryland. But the good story was and im taking it back to afroamerican women. So, you know, sharon and rosalind were saying, well, what you going to write your article on . You got to do a contribution. And so i had done something on mary church, terrell for, the dictionary of american biographies. I didnt want to do her again. I couldnt figure out who i wanted to work with. So i talked to mother and my mother said, well you know, there was this woman that went to your grandfathers church named Nannie Helen Burroughs, and she, you know, and i might tell you the thing thats so amazing, it is that her name was not a name, was widely understood by my generation of the 1970s. And she died in like 62. So its like she had been gone even that long. But anyway, i, i, i went into the i was working maryland, so i went in and i looked at the things there and it was pretty much there that i was to write the article about Nan