Centre for European and International Studies Research (CEISR)

Profile

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.  I am published in the gender history of the NAACP from 1909 to 1945 in the Deep South of the United States and my research interests are generally in this early period of the civil rights struggle.  My research has been on race, gender and class in America, especially in the inter-war period and the 1920s - the so-called Jazz Age, particularly cultural aspects of the era.  I am currently writing a monograph on the NAACP in Baltimore, Maryland, from 1914 to 1970.  Future research will focus on the youth movement in the NAACP from the 1930s to the 1960s.

Qualifications

• PhD - University of Lancaster, 2004
• MA US History - University of Keele, 1995
• BA History and Politics & Government - University of Kent, 1993

Research Clusters

• Women's and Gender Studies

Research CV 

Current Research Project

Looking at gender and civil rights in the NAACP from 1914 to 1970 in Baltimore, Maryland, a border state, with analysis of Lillie Jackson (Baltimore NAACP president, 1935-1970) and youth activism.

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

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,  published by 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)
• "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, to be published by University of Arkansas Press, 2009

Other Publications

• Book reviews for American Historical Review, Journal of Southern History, Journal of American Studies and American Studies Today (also American Studies On-Line)

Grants Received

• Grant of £4,000 from the British Academy in 2009 for a research trip to Washington DC and Baltimore, Maryland.

Consultancy

• Consultant for the on-line encyclopaedia on Louisiana history, KnowLA.  Book reviewer for Louisiana State University Press since 2006.