Beverly G. Bond
Professor
Education
Ph.D., History, The University of Memphis, 1996
Fields of Interest
My research focuses on nineteenth-century African-American history, African-American Women's History and Memphis History. I am particularly interested in the ways in which 19th-century African-American women negotiated the boundaries of Enslavement and freedom, class, and gender in the urban South. My research focuses on black women in Memphis from the early 1800s to the beginning of the twentieth century. I have also worked on aspects of Memphis history including a general history of the city and of the city's famed Beale Street and two books on the University of Memphis for the university's 2012 centennial. In 2016, I was Project Director, with Dr. Susan O'Donovan, of the city-wide sesquicentennial commemoration of the 1866 Memphis Massacre.
Courses taught
African-American History; African-American Women's History; Graduate Research Seminar; African American Historiography, 19th Century; Black Memphis; and Slavery, Freedom and Segregation: 19th Century African American History
Administration/Service
I served as director of the College of Arts and Sciences program in African and African American Studies from 2002 to 2012. I continued as advisor to the program's majors and minors for 2012-2013. I have also served on local and state historical committees. I am currently on the Board of Trustees of the Memphis Museums, Inc, the Board of Advisors of the Tennessee Civil War National Heritage Area, and the Tennessee Historical Records Advisory Board. I have also served on and chaired the board of directors of Humanities Tennessee and served as president of the Southern Association for Women Historians.
Books
Memphis in Black and White, co-authored with Janann Sherman (Arcadia Publishing, 2003)
Images of America: Beale Street, co-authored with Janann Sherman (Arcadia Publishing, 2006)
Tennessee Women: Their Lives and Times, with Sarah Wilkerson Freeman (University of Georgia Press, Vol. 1, 2009 and Vol. 2, 2015)
Dreamers. Thinkers. Doers. A Centennial History of the University of Memphis, co-authored with Janann Sherman (Donning, 2011)
History of the University of Memphis, 1912-2012, co-authored with Janann Sherman (Arcadia Publications, 2012)
Remembering the Memphis Massacre: An American Story, co-edited with Susan Eva O'Donovan (University of Georgia Press, 2020)
Book chapters and journal articles
"'The Extent of the Law': Free Women of Color in Antebellum Memphis, Tennessee," in Negotiating the Boundaries of Southern Womanhood: Dealing With The Powers That Be (University of Missouri Press)
"'Every Duty Incumbent Upon Them': African-American Women in Nineteenth Century Memphis," in Trial and Triumph: Readings in Tennessee's African-American Past (University of Tennessee Press)
"Sarah Roberta Church: Race and the Republican Party in the 1950s," in The Human Tradition: Portraits of African-American Life Since 1865 (Scholarly Resources)
"Milly Swan Price: Freedom, Kinship, and Property," in Tennessee Women: Their Lives, Their Times, Vol. 1 (University of Georgia Press)
"'Ma...did not make a good slave': African American Women and Slavery in Tennessee" in Tennessee Women: Their Lives and Times, Vol. 2 (University of Georgia Press, 2015)
"Sue Shelton White," in American National Biography (2015)
"'Educating the Common Man': Developing Public School Systems in Memphis and Shelby County, 1820-1944," in The Dynamics of School Consolidation: Race, Economics, & The Politics of Educational Change, (University of Tennessee Press, 2018)
"Taylor-Made: Envisioning Black Memphis at Midcentury," in An Unseen Light: Black Struggles for Freedom in Memphis, Tennessee (The University Press of Kentucky, 2018)
"The Hive," in No Straight Path: Becoming Women Historians (Louisiana State University Press, 2019)
Encyclopedia articles
Organizing Black America: An Encyclopedia of African-American Associations ("Memphis Lyceum" and "Memphis: Civic, Literary, and Mutual Aid Associations")
The Family in America: An Encyclopedia ("African-American families," "Freedmen's Families," and "Interracial families")
The New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture, Gender Volume ("Mary Church Terrell" and "The National Association of Colored Women")
Honors and Awards
Willard R. Sparks Eminent Faculty Award, 2021 - University of Memphis Board of Visitors
Distinguished Research in the Humanities, 2021 - The University of Memphis Alumni
Association
Distinguished Advising Award, 2012 - College of Arts and Sciences
Distinguished Teaching Award, 2002 - The University of Memphis Alumni Association
Dunavant University Professorship, 2011 - 2014 - University of Memphis
100 Years, 100 Women: Preserving the Legacy Award, 2012 - University of Memphis Centennial
Event
Martin Luther King, Jr. Human Rights Award, 2009 - University of Memphis
Current projects
Claiming My Self: African American women in Memphis, Tennessee, 1820s-early 1900s