Our Historians

Alicia J. Rivera is currently an Assistant Professor in history at California State University, Fresno in Fresno, California. She is a registered nurse who in her latter years became interested in American history, particularly in issues of labor and race. Ms. Rivera has received many awards for her work, among them California State, Fresno Social Science’s Dean’s Medal and a Ronald E. McNair Scholarship while attending California State University–Fresno. She holds a BSN from the University of Costa Rica and a BSA and a MA in history from California State University, Fresno. Ms. Rivera’s work has been published in numerous encyclopedias such as Encyclopedia of African American Biography. Her work on the San Diego Superior Court Case, Lemon Grove v. Roberto Alvarez was published in The Journal of Latin/Latino American Studies, (JOLLAS).

Alipio Terenzi teaches English as a second language and social studies to English Language Learners at Mt. Vernon High School in Mt. Vernon, Washington. He was born in Rome, Italy, in 1958, and attended international schools there. Alipio Terenzi came to the U.S. in 1982 to continue his university studies. He has a B.S. in Environmental Studies from Western Washington University, a Master’s in Teaching from Seattle University, an M.S. degree in Community Development from the University of California, Davis, and an M.A. in Teaching English as a second language from the University of British Columbia.

Dr. Alison Rose Jefferson is an independent historian, heritage conservation consultant and a third generation Californian. Her research interests explore the intersection of American history, the African American experience in California, historical memory, spatial justice, commemorative justice, and cultural tourism. Her scholarly work, public engagement, and professional service includes work with colleagues: in academic and grade school youth programs and public policy; at historical sites; in documentary films and the arts; and other public programming collaborations.

Aliyah Dunn-Salahuddin is a graduate of San Francisco State University where she earned both her B.A. and M.A. in American History, with an emphasis in the African American experience and ethnic/ race relations. She went on to become tenured faculty at City College of San Francisco (CCSF) where she taught both African American and United States History and served as Department Chair of African American Studies. Her current research interests are focused on the Black freedom struggle and civil rights movements in the San Francisco Bay Area. She is also a performing artist who is interested in utilizing public history and the performing arts to make local histories more accessible. Her most recent publication is “A Forgotten Community, A Forgotten History: San Francisco’s 1966 Uprising” featured in The Strange Careers of the Jim Crow North (NYU Press, 2019).

Allen L. Lee is an author and musician with a focus on presenting the history of people of African descent and their cultural evolution into the American West. Museums, schools and libraries augment the education of a diverse American West history with his songs and research. Winner of the California Country Music Association’s, “Songwriter of the Year” for 1999, Allen also worked as a principle artist funded by the National Endowment for the Arts in 2003/04 to help the Riverside, Ca. Mission Inn Museum teach High School students how to discover family artifacts and place value in those artifacts with objective and subjective literature. He owns his own independent recording label, “Rollin’ Country Records,” and writes both fiction and non-fiction about the Black West, including “The Horse Chiefs,” and “West America,” both fiction, and a monthly non-fiction article published on the web titled “From Africa To The American West.”

Allison Blakely is a Professor Emeritus of European and Comparative History at Boston University. His interest in comparative history has centered on comparative democracy and on the historical evolution of color prejudice. His doctorate, in Russian History, is from the University of California at Berkeley. He is the author of Blacks in the Dutch World: The Evolution of Racial Imagery in a Modern Society [1994]; and Russia and the Negro: Blacks in Russian History and Thought [1986], which was a winner of an American Book Award. Among his numerous chapters in edited anthologies is “Blacks in the U.S. Diplomatic and Consular Services, 1869-1924,” in a book titled African Americans in U.S. Foreign Policy: From the Era of Frederick Douglass to the Age of Obama, published in 2015, edited by Linda Heywood, Allison Blakely, Charles Stith, and Joshua C. Yesnowitz. His most recent scholarly article is, “Contested Blackness in Red Russia,” The Russian Review 75 (July, 2016): 359-67.

He is a former President of the Phi Beta Kappa Society and serves on the Editorial Board of its journal The American Scholar. He has also served on the National Council for the Humanities, to which he was appointed by President Obama in 2010. In an earlier government post, he was awarded the Bronze Star and Purple Heart medals for his service as a Captain in Army Intelligence in Vietnam in1967-1968.

Allison Espiritu graduated from the University of Washington in 2007 with a degree in journalism. She has worked for a number of Seattle area newspapers including the International Examiner, OnePhilippines, the North Seattle Herald Outlook, and the Madison Park Times. Her feature stories have covered diverse topics ranging from alcohol awareness programs in the Seattle Middle School and the local impact of the Great American Smoke Out program to a discussion of the role of local restaurants in feeding the homeless. Allison is currently working at the Seattle Times as a News Lead Assistant.

Allison Marie O’Connor is an undergraduate student at the University of Washington. She is majoring in History with minors in Japanese and Education, Learning, and Society. After graduating she hopes to participate in the Master in Teaching program at her university and get the certification to become a high school Social Studies/History teacher.

Allison Rupert is currently completing her B.A. at the University of Washington, Seattle, with a focus on Dance and Education. After completion of her degree Rupert is then completing her Masters in Teaching with an emphasis in elementary education at the University of Washington. Rupert is interested in incorporating movement into daily curriculum to enhance learning. She is also interested in working with underprivileged children in the Seattle school district. She plans to pursue her ELS endorsement (English language learner/ English as a second language) as well as a dance endorsement.

Alonzo Smith is currently a professor of history at Montgomery College, in Rockville, Maryland. After graduating from Georgetown University in 1962, he served for three years as a schoolteacher in the Republic of the Ivory Coast, in West Africa, first as a Peace Corps Volunteer, and then as an employee of the Ivory Coast Ministry of National Education. He later earned the M.A. degree in African History from Howard University, and the Ph.D. degree in African American History from the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA). He has taught at Los Angeles City College, the Black Studies Center of the Claremont Colleges, California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, the University of Nebraska at Omaha, and Hampton University. From 1991 to 1992 he was program director and country manager for the nonprofit governmental organization, Africare, in Sierra Leone. His publications include An Illustrated History of African Americans in Nebraska, co-authored with Bertha Calloway. From 1994 to 2005 he was a research historian and associate curator at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, where he served as one of two co-curators for the exhibition, “Separate Is Not Equal: Brown v. Board of Education.” His research and teaching interests include; contemporary African Studies, twentieth century African American history, and peace and social justice issues.

Alton Hornsby Jr. earned a Bachelors degree in history from Morehouse College and M.A. and Ph.D. degree from the University of Texas (Austin), where he held a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship, a Southern Education Foundation Fellowship and a University Fellowship. Professor Hornsby is Fuller E. Callaway Professor of History at Morehouse College. For 25 years (between 1976 and 2001), he edited the Journal of Negro History for the Association for the Study of African American Life and History. He has also edited “The Papers of John and Lugenia Burns Hope” for Blackwell’s Companion to African American History and the Dictionary of Twentieth Century Black Leaders. In 2004, he wrote the Introduction for the 17th edition of Who’s Who Among African Americans. Among his most recent works are A Short History of Black Atlanta, 1847-1990, “Southerners Too?: Essays on the Black South, 1773-1990,” for the Dictionary of Twentieth Century Black Leaders (editor-in-chief and contributor), The Atlanta Urban League, 1920-2000 (with Alexa B. Henderson; winner of the Adele Mellon Prize for distinguished scholarship), A Biographical History of African Americans, and From the Grassroots: Profiles of Contemporary Black Leaders (with Angela M. Hornsby),

Hornsby has been president of the Association of Social and Behavioral Scientists and the Southern Conference on African American Studies. He has served on the executive council of the Association of Social and Behavioral Scientists, the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH) and the Southern Historical Association.

Dr. Alton Hornsby died in Atlanta, Georgia on September 1, 2017.

Alvin Finkel is professor emeritus of History at Athabasca University in Alberta, Canada and the long-time president of the Alberta Labour History Institute. He is a prolific historian whose books include seven editions of the two-volume History of the Canadian Peoples (co-authored with Margaret Conrad and Donald Fyson), Compassion: A Global History of Social Policy, Social Policy and Practice in Canada: A History, Working People in Alberta: A History, The Social Credit Phenomenon in Alberta, Our Lives: Canada Since 1945 and In Our Time: The Chamberlain-Hitler Collusion (co-authored with Clement Leibovitz). His latest book, upon which this article is based, is Humans: The 300,000 Year Struggle for Equality. Alvin was the editor of the journal Prairie Forum from 1984 to 1993 and book review editor for Labour/ Le Travail from 2001 to 2012. He also served as president of the Canadian Committee for Labour History from 2008 to 2014. Alvin earned his BA (1970) and MA (1972) from the University of Manitoba and his PhD from the University of Toronto in 1976. He was the first historian hired by Athabasca University (1978) where he taught for 36 years before his retirement. Alvin is a white Canadian but both of his adult sons are Black. His older son, Antony, is a Black Carib from St. Vincent and the Grenadines. His younger son, Kieran is of mixed African and Cree Indian descent.

Alvin Hayes is a native of Hartford, Connecticut, received his BS degree in Sociology from Tennessee State University, and is a Life Member of Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity. Alvin retired after a successful career selling technology products and services to Fortune 500 companies. He currently lives in South Florida and is the creator of “The whileBlack Chronicles,” a series of historical fiction books about the Black experience in America. On the YouTube broadcast, “So Tell Me About Your Book,” he described the Black history embedded in his stories and how he employs African American Historical Fiction to display Black resilience in the face of racism and violence.

Thomas was born Alvirita Maxine Hightower to Ted Hightower and Verna Lee Booker Hightower in Houston, Texas on 11/16/1961. Thomas retired as Branch Manager/VP after 25 years of service at different capacities in Retail Banking.

Thomas became interested in compiling history after having the opportunity to browse through old pictures and newspaper articles which enlightened her of the significant contributions her family has made as African Americans in their business professions and in their communities. For example, her late grandmother, Alvirita Wells Little, established the first girl’s club for inner city youth of Seattle which provided a place for young girls to go, after school, to enhance their studies and learn life enrichment skills. Thomas’s mother, nicknamed “BOOTS”, has been recognized posthumously as the first African American professional barrel racer to gain entry and compete in the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo in 1969 and 1970. “BOOTS” was inducted into the National Multicultural Western Museum Hall of Fame in 2007. A Humanitarian Award has been named in her honor.

Thomas enjoys sharing her family history with family and friends. She is a graduate of Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana (1984). She married Carl Thomas in 1986 and became a member of the New Faith Missionary Baptist Church. Thomas and her family are longtime residents of the diverse community of Stafford, TX. They have two children, Carl II (Emily) and Brecca. They are the proud grandparents of one grandson, Eauxien (pronounced “Ocean”).

Alwyn Barr is professor of history at Texas Tech University and a former chair of the history department. Among his five authored books are: Black Texans: A History of African Americans in Texas, 1528-1995, 2nd ed.; Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1996), and African Texans, College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2004. He also has edited, with Robert A. Calvert, Black Leaders: Texans for Their Times, Austin: Texas State Historical Association, 1980; and has written the Introduction to Black Cowboys of Texas, edited by Sara R. Massey, College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2000, as well as several articles on African American history in professional journals. He is a former president of the Texas State Historical Association and a former board member of Humanities Texas.

Alys Beverton is an undergraduate at the University of Sussex, England, with a particular interest in African American history. She is currently attending the University of Washington, Seattle, as an exchange student for one year. Upon completion of her degree in 2010, she hopes to continue on in academics and pursue a master’s degree in American history.

Alyssa Snow is a fourth-year honors student at Northwest University. She is pursuing a major in biology and an art minor. After Alyssa completes her bachelor’s degree in May 2023, she plans on entering a career in environmental science and sustainability before pursuing a graduate degree.

Alyssa Snow is a fourth-year honors student at Northwest University. She is pursuing a major in biology and an art minor. After Alyssa completes her bachelor’s degree in May 2023, she plans on entering a career in environmental science and sustainability before pursuing a graduate degree.

Amber Eaton is a student at the University of Washington currently working on her Bachelor’s degree in Sociology and Comparative History of Ideas. She will be graduating the Spring of 2009. At the time of this entry, she was a student in Dr. Quintard Taylor’s class on African Americans in the American West at the University of Washington.

Amilcar Shabazz, Professor and Chair of the W.E.B. DuBois Department of Afro-American Studies at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, has been in the teaching game almost twenty years. His Advancing Democracy: African Americans and the Struggle for Access and Equity in Higher Education in Texas (University of North Carolina Press, 2004), won the T. R. Fehrenbach Book Award and Essence Magazine named it a top ten recommended non-fiction book. The Forty Acres Documents, a sourcebook on reparations, is among his many other published writings. Shabazz has presented scholarly papers, taught classes, and conducted research across the U.S. and abroad, and in 2004, was named a Fulbright Senior Specialist in São Paulo, Brazil. He is currently completing Carter Wesley: Master of the Blast, a book about a Texas-born entrepreneur and civil rights activist who tried to embody W. E. B. Du Bois’s “Talented Tenth” race man idea. Also, Shabazz’s Continuous Struggle: American Democracy’s Last Great Hope is a new work in progress focused on the political lives of two women in Austin, Texas, Dorothy Turner and Velma Roberts, and the transformative possibilities of grassroots activism in the postmodern/postcolonial era of the last quarter of the twentieth century.

Amina Hassan, a second generation Angeleno, is an independent scholar and an award-winning public radio documentarian with productions ranging from the coup and on-the-spot recording of the U.S. invasion of Grenada, to a radio series for National Public Radio on how race, class and gender shape American sport. Her Ph.D. from Ohio University is in rhetorical criticism. She received her bachelor of arts from the University of California, Berkeley. Presently, she is working on the first critical biography of Loren Miller, civil rights attorney and journalist.

Amorae’ Shamberger is a senior at Texas A&M University, majoring in Political Science with a minor and certification in Philosophy Pre Law. She is hoping to get her J.D. after college and practice as a corporate. Her interest in racial politics, she hopes to be an influential activist for civil rights movements. She is currently the Director of A.L.I for the Southwestern Black Student Leadership Conference. One day she is hoping to get involved with international law in the future. Policy reform is one her main goal to be involved in currently whether it is locally or nationally. She is from Dallas but is the daughter of an Army veteran.

After a forty-year career at the Smithsonian Institution, Amy Ballard retired as Senior Historic Preservation Specialist Emerita in 2016. Besides her interest in historic preservation, she has a lifelong interest in Russia.

Her fascination with Russia led her to James Lloydovich Patterson in 2020. She was the project coordinator for Chronicle of the Left Hand: An American Black Family’s Story from Slavery to Russia’s Hollywood by Patterson.