Shirley Ann Wilson Moore received her Ph.D. in American history from the University of California, Berkeley in 1989. She is Professor Emerita of History at California State University, Sacramento where she taught undergraduate and graduate classes and seminars in American History, specializing in African American history, African American Western history, and the history of African American Western women. Her most recent book, Sweet Freedom’s Plains African Americans on the Overland Trails, 1841-1869 (University of Oklahoma Press, 2016), won the 2018 Barbara Sudler Award for best non-fiction work on a western American subject authored by a woman. Her first book, To Place Our Deeds: The African American Community in Richmond, California, 1910-1963 (University of California Press, 2000), was the recipient of the Richmond Museum’s Historical Preservation Award, 2000. Her second book, co-edited with Quintard Taylor, African American Women Confront the West, 1600-2000 (University of Oklahoma Press, 2003), received the American Library Association’s CHOICE Award in 2004.
She is the author of numerous journal articles, essays, and book chapters including: “Anonymous Black Gold Seeker at Auburn Ravine, 1852,” Bulletin, California State Library, no. 128, November 2020;” “Passing,” Afterword to Robert Chandler’s Black and White: Lithographer and Painter Grafton Tyler Brown, (University of Oklahoma Press, 2014); “‘I Want It to Come Out Right,’” Forward to Rudolph M. Lapp’s Archy Lee: A California Fugitive Slave Case (Berkeley: Heyday Books, 2008); ”No Cold Weather to Grapple With: African American Expectations of California, 1900-1950,” Journal of the West, vol. 44, no. 2, Spring 2005; “‘We Feel the Want of Protection: The Politics of Law and Race in California, 1848-1878,’” Taming the Elephant: Politics, Government and Law in Pioneer California,” John F. Burns and Richard J. Orsi, ed. (Berkeley: University of California Press and the California Historical Society, 2003); “‘Your Life is Really Not Just Your Own’: African American Women in Twentieth Century California,” Seeking El Dorado; African Americans in California, 1769-1997, Lawrence De Graaf, Kevin Mulroy & Quintard Taylor, ed. (Los Angeles: Autry Museum and Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2001); “‘Do You Think I’ll Lug Trunks?’” African Americans in Gold Rush California,” Kenneth Owens, ed., Riches for All: The California Gold Rush and the World, (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2002).
She has served on advisory boards, boards of trustees, and professional committees including: Liberty Legacy Foundation Award Committee, Organization of American History (Chair, 2011-2012); Advisor, National Park Service Rosie the Riveter/Home Front Project (2004-2013); Caughy Prize Committee, Western History Association; Black Overland Trails Wagon Project (2009-2012); Billington Award Committee, Western History Association,(1999-2002); Joan Jensen-Darlis Miller Prize Committee, Western History Association (2000-2001); California Historical Society Board of Trustees(1990-1995); California Council for the Humanities (1996-1999).
Dr. Moore has served as a consultant and on-camera historian for documentary films including “African American Motoring: The Green Book,” Donner Memorial State Park, Laurence Campling, Producer/Director, 2017; “Rosie the Riveter WWII Homefront National Historical Park,” (National Park Service), 2012; “Rising Above: Building the Indomitable City,” Laurence Campling, Producer/Director, (in partnership with the Center for Sacramento History and Historic Old Sacramento Foundation), 2011; “Meet Mary Ellen Pleasant: Mother of Civil Rights in California.” (Susheel Bibbs, Producer/Director, MEP Productions, broadcast on PBS), 2008; Disney Corporation, California Adventure Theme Park and “Golden Dreams” film (2000).
