African American History

Vanderbilt Divinity School invites the community to a viewing of Gospel, a new PBS docuseries on the rich history of Black religious music and preaching, and a conversation with two of the program’s commentators on Feb. 13. The event, which begins at 6 p.m. in Sarratt Cinema, features Yolanda Pierce and Michael Eric Dyson, both of whom are in the docuseries. Read More

The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation has selected Kimberly Welch, a Vanderbilt scholar of American slavery, race and law, for a New Directions Fellowship that will expand her interdisciplinary research on African Americans and the history of finance. Read More

Kimberly Welch, associate professor of history and assistant professor of law at Vanderbilt University, has been awarded a 2022 Dan David Prize. The internationally renowned annual award, headquartered at Tel Aviv University, gives prizes of $300,000 each to nine early- to mid-career history scholars whose outstanding contributions expand knowledge of the past, enrich society in the present and promise to improve the future of the world.   Read More

This semester’s inaugural Vanderbilt History Seminar will explore the work of artist Kara Walker and the memory of slavery. The Sept. 30 lecture corresponds with the Frist Art Museum’s ongoing exhibition "Kara Walker: Cut to the Quick" and the Vanderbilt Fine Arts Gallery’s "Sympathetic Magic: Works of Faith, Healing and Transformation," which includes Walker's works. Read More

Celebrations of Juneteenth, the oldest known celebration in the United States commemorating the end of slavery, will be shaped this year by the 2020 political landscape, according to Brandon Byrd, assistant professor of history at Vanderbilt. Read More

As communities throughout the South struggle to determine appropriate ways of recognizing Civil War history, Jane Landers, Gertrude Conaway Vanderbilt Professor of History, and Postdoctoral Fellow Angela Sutton have worked to draw attention to Fort Negley as a site that teaches the tragedy of slavery as well as celebrates the contributions of free and enslaved black people to Nashville and the nation’s history. Read More

The complex history of Nashville’s Public Square Park—including stories of Native and African Americans—has inspired a public performance by visiting sound artist Guillermo Galindo Oct. 25. Read More

Vanderbilt students and faculty came together to transcribe digitized handwritten records from the 19th century about African American history Feb. 14 at the Center for Digital Humanities. Read More

A lecture related to little-known African American sports history on Feb. 7 will lead off a series of events celebrating African American History Month at the Central Library. Read More

African American pioneers in sports and entertainment, media in a time of fake news, and climate change and human health are among the winter offerings of the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Vanderbilt. Read More

Yarbrough's World War II scrapbook is now part of the foundational collection of the Smithsonian’s newest museum, the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C. Read More

An art exhibition inspired by a Vanderbilt undergraduate student's course work in African American history will be hosted by Religion in the Arts and Contemporary Culture at the Divinity School. Read More

Dennis Dickerson will focus on the impact of African American women who encountered Mohandas Gandhi during the struggle for civil rights when he delivers the Howard L. Harrod Lecture Nov. 10. Read More

Lewis Baldwin, an emeritus religious studies professor who has dedicated his teaching and research to the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr., will be in Selma, Alabama, March 6 for the 50th anniversary of "Bloody Sunday." Read More

Former Tuskegee Airman Eugene Richardson will speak at Vanderbilt's Sarratt Cinema Jan. 30 at 7 p.m. The event is free and open to the public. Read More

Watch the April 7 talk by Bobby Lovett, professor of history at Tennessee State University, “Nashville and the Civil War, 1860-1866, and the Economic, Social and Political Transformations.” Lovett’s areas of expertise include African-American history and Tennessee as well as Nashville history. His books include The African American History of… Read More