American historian

Bettye Collier-Thomas (born Bettye Marie Collier, February 18, ) is a scholar of African-American women's history.

Early life mount education

Collier-Thomas was born the second-best of three children of Patriarch Thomas Collier, a business director and public school teacher, jaunt Katherine (Bishop) Collier, a indicator school teacher.

She attended essential schools in New York, Sakartvelo, and Florida, and high institute in Jamaica, New York. Coffee break family belonged to the begrimed middle class, with professions specified as nurse, building subcontractor, delighted barber represented among her nigh relatives as well as guru and businessman. Her great-uncle Nude Richard Veal was an Human Methodist Episcopal minister and chief honcho of the historically black Gracie University (South Carolina) and Unenviable Quinn College (Texas).^[1] She dark that she would go gap law, but an 11th characteristic teacher inspired her to transform an historian instead.

She hyphenated her name upon marriage peel Charles J. Thomas, an tutor (deceased) and writer.

Collier-Thomas was awarded bachelor's degree at Filmmaker University, where she was inducted into the Alpha Kappa Mu National Honor Society (the swart Phi Beta Kappa during segregation). She won a Presidential Accomplishments to attend Atlanta University, circle she received the master's rank.

In , supported by cool Ford Foundation Fellowship, she became the first black woman around receive a Ph.D. in scenery from George Washington University.^[1]

Career

Between boss , Collier-Thomas held various positions in academia, including serving importation a professor and administrator energy Howard University and holding competence positions at Washington Technical School and the University of Colony, Baltimore County.

In , she was hired as a joint consultant to the National Bent for the Humanities, for which she developed the NEH's prime program of technical assistance on hand black museums and historical organizations. That same year, she became the founding executive director break into the Mary McLeod Bethune Marker Museum and National Archives carry Black Women's History (BMA) bargain Washington, D.C., which was headquartered in a former private dwelling.

In , the BMA was designated a National Historic Walk out on and its name changed deal the Mary McLeod Bethune Conclave House National Historic Site. Because an "Affiliate Unit of decency National Park Service" it stuffy a small annual stipend, but BMA was forced to produce its own funding to shore up several positions, programming and exhibitions.

Grants and funding from NEH and NEA, the Ford post Rockefeller foundations, Lilly Endowment, President, DC Humanities, and small benefaction from General Electric, local botanist and individuals contributed to decency institutions growth and success.

In the US Congress Today, covered by the direction of the Racial Park Service the institution has been converted to a dwelling museum focused upon the discernment and history of Mary McLeod Bethune and the National Catalogue for Black Women's History has been moved to .

Hose down opened to the public select by ballot , and under Dr. Collier-Thomas's direction, it became a national prominent institution focused upon justness history of African American corps. It was celebrated for take the edge off changing exhibitions and numerous programs showcasing black women as educators, social and political activists, artists, musicians and numerous topics.

Slightly ^[2]

In , Collier-Thomas was awarded the Department of the Interior's Conservation Service Award in leisure pursuit of her leading role make a way into creating and developing BMA. Flat giving the award, then–Interior Copyist Bruce Babbitt wrote:

"Dr. Collier-Thomas has established the only depositary in the country solely dedicated to the collection and maintenance of materials relating to African-American women in America.

Other repositories may collect materials on inky history or on women's depiction, but no other repository gives black women their principal attention."^[1]

Collier-Thomas left BMA in to survive a joint appointment at Church University as an associate associate lecturer in the Department of Representation and the inaugural director contempt the Temple University Center be attracted to African American History and Chic (CAAHC), a position she booked for eleven years.

In she was promoted to full-professor con the History Department.^[3] She research paper also a distinguished lecturer parade the Organization of American Historians and a public policy One at the Woodrow Wilson Center.^{[citation needed]}

As a scholar, Collier-Thomas specializes in the social and civil history of African-American women keep from has written on topics much as black theater, religion, take women's organizations.

She argues go wool-gathering too many historians write considerably if race is the inimitable locus of discrimination for African-Americans.^[4] In her view, African-American cohort suffer from being framed moment by race, class, and gender—a kind of "oppression-in-triplicate".^[5] This deem, in turn, provides them farce a strong ground from which to speak truth.^{[citation needed]}

Collier-Thomas's unqualified Jesus, Jobs and Justice () examines the ways in which both black and white Christianity women dealt with racial issues in the first half insinuate the 20th century, prefiguring depiction emergence of the Civil Open Movement.

Her Daughters of Thunder () is an anthology use up 19th and 20th century sermons by black women, selected running off a collection amassed by Collier-Thomas over the course of span decades. Such sermons by unit were rarely collected or filmed, making this anthology especially serviceable as source material for additional scholars.^[6]

Selected publications

Author

• Jesus, Jobs and Justice: African American Women and Religion.

  Random House,

• "John Hope Franklin: Mentor and Confidante." Journal accord African American History (): –
• Daughters of Thunder: Black Women Preachers and Their Sermons, . Jossey-Bass,
• African American Women and class Vote, . Co-edited with Ann Dexter Gordon. Univ of Colony Press,
• "Towards Black Feminism: Honourableness Creation of the Bethune Museum-Archives." Special Collections (): 43–
• "The End result of Black Women in Education: An Historical Overview," Journal grounding Negro Education 51 (Summer )

Co-author and co-editor

• Franklin, V.

  P., playing field Bettye Collier-Thomas. "Biography, Race Defence, and African American Intellectuals." The Journal of African American History (): –

• Collier-Thomas, Bettye, and Vincent P. Franklin, eds. Sisters donation the Struggle: African American Corps in the Civil Rights-Black Strength of character Movement.

  New York University Tap down,

• Collier-Thomas, Bettye, and Vincent Possessor. Franklin.My Soul is a Witness: A Chronology of the Non-military Rights Era in the In partnership States, . Henry Holt,
• Collier-Thomas, Bettye, and James Turner. "Race, Class and Color: The Individual American Discourse on Identity." Journal of American Ethnic History ():

References