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 his thesis on women in the Civil Rights Movement.  In 2007 he was winner of the Jules & Francis Landry award 2007 for the best book on a southern topic for his first monograph, Invisible Activists.

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 twentieth century America. My current research project is on youth groups in the civil rights struggle from 1947 to 1960.  I am also organizing a conference on ‘Dixie and the Great War’.

Publications

Authored Books:

Borders of Equality: The NAACP and the Baltimore Civil Rights Struggle, 1914-1970, (Jackson: University of Mississippi Press, 2013)

Invisible Activists: Women of the Louisiana NAACP and the Struggle for Civil Rights, 1915-1945, (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2007)

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

Book Chapters:

 “We are but Americans” Miss Georgia M. Johnson and Civil Rights Activism in Alexandria, Louisiana, in Shannon Frystack and Mary Farmer-Kaiser, eds., Louisiana Women: Their Lives and Times, Vol.II, (Athens: University of Georgia Press, forthcoming)

“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)

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)

Other Publications:

Book reviews: Journal of American History, American Historical Review, Journal of Southern History, Florida Historical Quarterly, Journal of American Studies and American Studies Today (also American Studies On-Line)

Courses Taught at Portsmouth

United States history in the twentieth century, including Civil Rights USA, African American history and culture, US foreign policy and US politics.

Administration

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