preservation projects
ABWH BOOKLIST
ASSOCIATION OF BLACK WOMEN HISTORIANS (ABWH)
Photo: A sample of books by ABWH life members. ABWH has almost 500 members and about half are life members.
This list is a work in progress and the beginning of a larger project to document the work of ABWH scholars.
Dr. Evans created this project to encourage proper citation of ABWH scholars, enhance the bibliographic record, and inform discussions about historiography.
Publications by ABWH Life Members
The ABWH Booklist is a sister project to the Black Women's Studies Booklist
preserving BLACK INTELLECTUAL HISTORY
Association of Black Women Historians
The Jazz of the City : WCLK and a Community History of Jazz in Atlanta
The Jazz of the City : WCLK and a Community History of Jazz in Atlanta
2025: It is my pleasure to serve as the new National Director of the Association of Black Women Historians (ABWH). I attended my first ABWH session in 2000 and became a life member in 2003.
ABWH was conceived in 1977 when three Black women historians, Rosalyn Terborg-Penn, Eleanor Smith, and Eleanor Parker, recognized the need for a specially focused organization within their profession. The organization was formally established in 1979. ABWH is a network of scholars representing every region of the country.
Click on the link below to meet the ABWH 2025-2026 leadership team!
The Jazz of the City : WCLK and a Community History of Jazz in Atlanta
The Jazz of the City : WCLK and a Community History of Jazz in Atlanta
The Jazz of the City : WCLK and a Community History of Jazz in Atlanta
2025: The radio station 91.9 WCLK recently celebrated 50 years as a community center of music in Atlanta, naming itself “the jazz of the city.” This collection will gather historical and scholarly research as well as community narratives about the history and culture of jazz in Atlanta, Georgia. The Jazz of the City will combine academic research and oral history to offer both historical outlines and vivid narrative color.
We invite scholars to shine a light on the details of jazz in Atlanta in all forms and fashions.
We also invite individuals central to creating and honoring jazz culture to contribute their stories via oral history interview. DEADLINE: AUGUST 1, 2025
Spelman College: Beverly Guy-Sheftall Words of Fire Fellowship
The Jazz of the City : WCLK and a Community History of Jazz in Atlanta
Georgia State University: Dr. Asa G. Hilliard III Library Donation
2024: I spent one week at the Spelman College Women's Research & Resource Center beginning discussions about how to honor Dr. Beverly Guy-Sheftall's career-long commitment to the Center and to the Institution.
There were three parts to my WORDS OF FIRE FELLOWSHIP: 1) sitting in the Spelman archives, perusing Sage journals, Messenger, and other documents; 2) in discussion with WRRC/Spelman Archive faculty, staff, and students; 3) in conversation with THE BGS herself! The discussion with Professor Guy-Sheftall was recorded and will be available soon along with details about the planned Spring 2025 celebration of her BLACK! FEMINIST! FREE! book release.
Georgia State University: Dr. Asa G. Hilliard III Library Donation
Georgia State University: Dr. Asa G. Hilliard III Library Donation
Georgia State University: Dr. Asa G. Hilliard III Library Donation
2024: I had the honor of facilitating Georgia State University's Fuller E. Callaway Professor Dr. Asa G. Hilliard III's private library donation to the Atlanta University Center Woodruff Library.
With guidance of the Hilliard family, Dr. Melissa Speight-Vaughn and I cataloged and assessed the entire collection of 5,154 books for donation--to accompany Dr. Hilliard's papers at AUC.
Formal announcements will be forthcoming in 2025 about the collection dedication event. The Hilliard library is a breathtaking (and life-giving) living archive of Black history, politics, education, religion, and culture.
Clark Atlanta University: Sonia Sanchez Peace Benches
Georgia State University: Dr. Asa G. Hilliard III Library Donation
Clark Atlanta University: W. E. B. Du Bois Legacy Project
2015: Peace benches were dedicated to Clark Atlanta University in honor of Sonia Sanchez's lifetime commitment to peace activism and her book, Peace is a Haiku Song. As chair of the AWH Department, I hosted a panel on the co-edited book S.O.S. Calling All Black People, featuring John H. Bracey Jr, Sonia Sanchez, and James Smethurst.
To coincide with the benches and dedication, I taught a graduate seminar in Africana Women's Studies on the work of Professor Sonia Sanchez. This project was part of the five-year CAU Du Bois Legacy Project that included a Keynote lecture by Amiri Baraka.
Clark Atlanta University: W. E. B. Du Bois Legacy Project
Georgia State University: Dr. Asa G. Hilliard III Library Donation
Clark Atlanta University: W. E. B. Du Bois Legacy Project
2013: As chair of the Department of African American Studies, Africana Women's Studies, and History (AWH), I initiated the Du Bois Legacy Project. With support from CAU President Carlton E. Brown and the participation of a broad-based coalition of Clark Atlanta University students, staff, administrators, and faculty we hosted a multi-year project to honor his 23 years on campus.
THE PROJECT INCLUDED
- 2012 Year-Long Seminars
- 2013 Conference & Bust
- 2014 Phylon Journal
- 2015 Sonia Sanchez Peace Benches
- 2016 Afrofuturism Panel
ABWH DIRECTOR'S MESSAGE | jANUARY 2025
Ever Onward: Black Women's Impulse toward Social Progress
ABWH Director’s Message
January 19, 2025
To: ABWH Membership
"The impulse of humanity toward social progress is like the movement in the currents of a great water system, from myriad sources and under myriad circumstances and conditions, beating onward, ever onward toward its eternity, the Ocean."
~Anna Julia Cooper, "Alpha Kappa Alpha, Souvenir," December 29,1925
Dear ABWH family, it is my pleasure to write and say “thank you” for entrusting me with our collective forward movement. I hope the beginning of your year and semester have been smooth, even during these rocky times. As incoming National Director, I have spent the past three weeks communicating with the new leadership team and with former Executive Council members. I am grateful for the heartwarming congratulations that have poured in and especially appreciate the hands-on support from the immediate past National Directors, Shennette Garrett-Scott and Erica Armstrong Dunbar.
We are surrounded by fire, ice, politics, war, pain, and foolishness. Yet our purpose as ABWH members and work as historians continues to flow, as Dr. Anna Julia Cooper stated, "beating onward, ever onward." When Soror Cooper (called “Sis Annie” by her loved ones) offered her remarks a century ago in Washington, D.C. on the occasion of celebrating her doctorate from the University of Paris, Sorbonne (Souvenir, 1925), she affirmed that, every person has the “right to grow." I am proud to be a part of an organization committed to advancing humanity and humanities as part of social progress and universal human rights. We work, as ever, against fabrication, artificiality, and erasure of truth. ABWH Truth is perennial--a fact in which I take solace as I embark on my tenure. Below are three starting points for our forward movement.
TRANSITION: As incoming officers, our first task has been to attend to the details of transition: Vanessa Holden (National Vice Director), Shannon Eaves (Secretary), Natanya Duncan (Parliamentarian), Amanda Hall (Treasurer), and I have been working with Shennette Garrett-Scott and outgoing officers to get the Executive Board online. In the past three weeks, we have migrated our website (a task years in the making), begun gaining access to email communication and financial accounts, and started to outline areas we need to address to ensure we are all ready to move forward in our positions. Thank you in advance for your patience as we make this transition—we are still gaining access to email accounts, so know that a response will be forthcoming from some representatives, but some will take a bit more time. We are also preparing for the transition of the Membership and Social Media communications teams, so expect more formal messages and newsletters soon. My leadership approach is to make sure our organizational structure and business is in order—first—so we are prepared to make interventions in our profession and in the world.
ORGANIZATION: Accordingly, our second task is internal organization. This coming Friday, the Executive Council will meet as a body and, there (in accordance with our Constitution and Bylaws), I will charge all committees. The Executive Council will be charged with the responsibility to engage a team of general members so we can, collectively, identify issues, tackle challenges, and make plans--big and small. We already have much on our plate, from learning how to manage email systems, ensuring our accounts and offices are in order, and clarifying the ABWH historical record, to planning for the 2025 ASALH conference and pre-planning future symposium events. Taking time to set up our committees will be slow work, but will ultimately ensure we have consistent communication between leadership and members so we can move forward with plans more quickly down the line. I am grateful for the folks who have agreed to serve and are already making themselves available for this work—in addition to all other obligations. They have already shown me that we are truly in this together.
MENTORSHIP: I have also begun to focus on a third task: leadership development and succession planning. The next National Director will be charged with hosting the ABWH 50th Anniversary symposium and I am beginning work now to set that person up for success. We have much work to do to create a public archive of our collective labor. Several have done this work before to establish physical and digital archives that document our foundation and development (including Rosalyn Terborg-Penn, Janice Sumler-Edmond, Ida Jones, Wanda Hendricks, Francille Rusan Wilson, Lopez Matthews, and Kenvi Phillips). My charge will be to make ABWH history and archival details more accessible to the general body. Specifically, I will work to create a more complete database of past ABWH officers, prize winners, and luncheon speakers so we can build a robust bibliography useful for discussions about Black women's historiography. I look forward to continuing documentation efforts, recognizing the generations of scholars who built this organization, and celebrating the work of past ABWH leaders in order to better prepare those who will take up the baton in the next few years. In addition to looking back, I also wish to sustain and grow the mentoring tradition of ABWH--without which I would not be who or where I am. For me, regenerative leadership means that looking back to give past leadership their flowers should work in tandem with identifying a broad set of new leaders and supporting their growth in the Association.
I attended my first ABWH Luncheon in 2000, and became a life member in 2003. It is an honor to be in this position to strengthen our community. Again, thank you for your patience as we take time to get ourselves in order. John Bracey often reminded me that, “whatever you pay attention to grows.” Know that my attention is on ABWH. I may not be swift, but my intent is to be thorough in supporting this sustainable community with collective practices that benefit all. Together, the Executive Council and I are readying ourselves to move onward.
Ever onward,
Stephanie Y. Evans
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Dr. Stephanie Y. Evans
Professor, Georgia State University
National Director, Association of Black Women Historians
