School of Languages and Area Studies (SLAS)

Profile

Lee Sartain is Senior Lecturer in American Studies and is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. He received his doctorate from the University of Lancaster on women in the Civil Rights Movement in Louisiana.

Research Interests

My research interests focus on the African American experience in the twentieth century civil rights struggle in the United States. In particular I am interested in the history of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the longest surviving civil rights organization in the US. My research has been on race, gender and class in America, especially in the 1920s - the Jazz Age. My current research project is on the city of Baltimore and the civil rights struggle, 1914 to 1970.

Authored Books:

• Invisible Activists: Women of the Louisiana NAACP and the Struggle for Civil Rights, 1915-1945, (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2007) – winner of the Jules & Francis Landry award 2007 for best book on a southern topic.

Edited Books:

• Kevern Verney & Lee Sartain, eds., Long is the Way and Hard: One Hundred Years of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, (Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 2009)

Encyclopaedic Entries:

• KnowLA – consultant for the on-line encyclopaedia on Louisiana history

Journal Articles:

• “Local leadership”: The Role of Women in the Louisiana Branches of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in Louisiana, 1920-1939, Louisiana History, Summer 2005, vol.XLVI, No.3 (311-331)
• “We are but Americans”: Miss Georgia M. Johnson and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in Alexandria, Louisiana, 1941-1946, North Louisiana History, Spring-Summer 2004, vol. XXV, No.2-3 (108-134)

Book Chapters:

• “It’s Worth One Dollar to Get Rid of Us”: Middle-Class Persistence and the NAACP in Louisiana, 1915-1945, in Verney K. & Sartain L., eds., Long is the Way and Hard: One Hundred Years of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, (Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 2009)

Other Publications:

Book reviews for Journal of American Studies and American Studies Today (also American Studies On-Line)

Courses Taught at Portsmouth

United States history in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, including race and slavery, the Civil Rights Movement, African American history and culture, and foreign policy courses.

Administration

Course Leader for American Studies & Combinations, Coordinator of the Semester Abroad programme