Our Historians
Blackpast is made possible by the content contributions of over 900 volunteers from six continents who give of their time and energy to bring this information to a global audience. Click on the images to read their stories or find them in the yellow tabs below in the three main categories: Academic, Independent, and Student. We need more volunteer content contributors. If you are interested please email us at Quintard@blackpast.org.
Dr. A. Absher earned her PhD at the University of Washington. Currently, she is teaching history and composition as a SAGES Fellow at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. The University of Michigan press plans to publish her first book, which examines race in Chicago as seen through the eyes of African American musicians in the city, in the spring of 2013.
Aaron Modica is a graduate of the master’s program in Educational Leadership at the University of Washington, Seattle. He has a BA and MA in Sociology from the University of Nevada, Reno. He is currently full-time faculty in the sociology department at Highline College.
Abdallah Y. Hegazy is a 2009 graduate of the University of Washington, Seattle where he majored in Finance. While studying at the UW Business School, he worked as a tutor at the department’s Writing Center. His recent work experiences have been in financial budgeting and analysis. He has a long and abiding interest in politics, literature, and history, particularly that centered around the African diaspora.
Abe Kaul is currently a non-matriculated student at the University of Washington. Abe graduated with a BA. in Political Science from Linfield College in McMinnville, Oregon in the spring of 2007. He plans to attend law school next year.
Abigail Swanson is an undergraduate at the University of Washington working to attain her BA in History. Abigail has an interest in African American history. Upon graduating, Abigail plans to teach English abroad.
Adam Arenson is an assistant professor at the University of Texas at El Paso. He holds an A.B. from Harvard College and a Ph.D. from Yale University. He is a historian of nineteenth-century North America, investigating the cultural and political history of slavery, Civil War, and Reconstruction and tracing the development of American cities, especially in the American West and its borderlands.
His first book, The Great Heart of the Republic: St. Louis and the Cultural Civil War (Harvard University Press, 2011) is now available. He has presented preliminary research from After the Underground Railroad at the biennial Association for Canadian Studies in the United States conference, and as an invitee to the Borderlands/Borderlines symposium at the Library of Congress in 2010. He has also published a half-dozen articles, including pieces on Dred Scott’s family and Anglo-Saxonism in the Yukon Territory. He is a regular contributor to the Making History Podcast blog.
Adam Christian Smith graduated from the University of Washington with a Bachelor of Arts in Communication and minor in History in 2012. His goal is to work in public relations for a city, veteran’s advocacy group, or attain a marketing position.
Adam Fletcher Sasse is the historian and author behind NorthOmahaHistory.com. He has written more than 800 articles related to Omaha, Nebraska, and is the author of #OmahaBlackHistory: African American People, Places and Events in the History of Omaha, Nebraska, as well as North Omaha History Volumes 1-3. He is also a co-author with Preston Love, Jr. of “A History of African Americans in Nebraska” in Roots of Justice: Historical Truth & Reconciliation in Nebraska. Lincoln, NE: Nebraska Truth and Reconciliation Project (In press). His @NorthOmahaHistory social media outreach includes 15,000 daily followers and he presents on North Omaha’s history throughout the city several times annually.
Adam Henig is the author of Watergate’s Forgotten Hero: Frank Wills, Night Watchman (McFarland & Company, Inc., 2021). He is author of two other books, Alex Haley’s Roots: An Author’s Odyssey (2014) and Baseball Under Siege: The Yankees, the Cardinals, and a Doctor’s Battle to Integrate Spring Training (2016). He is currently working on a biography of former Major League star Ron LeFlore.
Adam’s writings have appeared in Time, Detroit Metro Times, Tampa Bay Times, Washington Independent Review of Books, History News Network, San Francisco Book Review, and the website BlackPast.
For more information, visit www.adamhenig.com.
