Dissertations in African-American History

Many graduate students have completed dissertations in the field of African-American history:

Montgomery Kurt McBee, 2001. They Also Played the Game: A Historical Examination of the Memphis Red Sox Baseball Organization, 1922-1959
Marcel Oyono, 2004. Colonization and Ethnic Rivalries in Cameroon since 1884
Raybon Joel Newman, 2005. Race and the Assemblies of God Church: The Journey from Azusa Street to the “Miracle of Memphis'”
Elton Weaver, 2007. “Mark the Perfect Man, and Behold the Upright”: Bishop C.H. Mason and the Emergence of the Church of God in Christ in Memphis, Tennessee
Donna Reeves, 2008. Whose History Is It Anyway?: The Battle over Southern History in Memphis
Kimberly Ellen Nichols, 2009. The Civil Rights Underground: The Movement for Compliance with the Civil Rights Act of 1964
Jayme Millsap Stone, 2010. “They Were Her Daughters”: The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and Grassroots Organizing for Social Justice in the Arkansas Delta, 1963-1967
Daryl Carter, 2011. President Bill Clinton, African Americans, and the Politics of Race and Class
Reginald K. Ellis, 2011. James Edward Shepard and the Politics of Black Education in North Carolina during the Jim Crow Era: 1875-1947
Shirletta Kinchen, 2011. “We want what people generally refer to as Black Power”: Youth Activism and the Impact of the Black Power Movement in Memphis, Tennessee, 1965-1975
Cynthia J. Sadler, 2011. Standing in the Shadows: African American Informants and Allies of the Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission
Darius Young, 2011. “The Gentleman from Memphis”: Robert R. Church Jr. and African American Leadership during the Early Civil Rights Movement
Maurice Brown, 2012. Plantation Schools: A History of Rural Black One-Room Schools in the Mid-South and the Mississippi Delta from Reconstruction to 1968
Doris Ann Youngblood Mulhearn, 2012. Southern Graces: Women, Faith, and the Quest for Social Justice, Memphis, Tennessee, 1950-1969
Sheena Harris, 2012. A Female Reformer in the Age of Booker T. Washington: The Life and Times of Margaret Murray Washington
Richard L. Saunders, 2012. “Encouraged by a Little Progress”: Voting Rights and the Contests over Social Place and Civil Society in Tennessee’s Fayette and Haywood Counties, 1958-1964
Shawn Fisher, 2013. The Battle of Little Rock
Brian Marc Edward McClure, 2013. Educating the Atlantic: Foreign Students and Global Exchange at Tuskegee Institute
Kaylin Ewing, 2014. “Her Own Kind of Woman”: The Life of Alberta Hunter
James Conway, 2015. Moderated Militants in the Age of Black Power: The Memphis NAACP
Le’Trice Donaldson, 2015. “A Legacy All Their Own”: African American Soldiers Fight for Citizenship and Manhood, 1870-1920

Others have dissertations in preparation in the field of African-American history:

Ken Baroff. Memphis and Shelby County Schools, post Brown
Michael Blum. “An Island of Racial Peace amid a Sea of Strife”: The Civil Rights Movement in Knoxville, Tennessee
Malcolm Frierson. Coming to the Stage: Dick Gregory, Bill Cosby, and the New Cultural Politics of African-American Comedy, 1961-75
Scott Frizzell. Busing and School Desegregation in Memphis, Tennessee
Victoria Gray. Mission of a Meddler: Mary Church Terrell as a Prototype of Elite Black Female Leadership, 1890-1915
Jeffery L. Jones. General Benjamin O. Davis
Graham Perry. Deceptive Currents: An Examination of Trends in Black Resistance in Memphis, Tennessee, 1865-2000
Tammy Prater. “Smile and Wear Pearls”: The Panel of American Women — Advocates of Social Harmony, 1957-1991