Alison Parker
Alison Parker
Founder, UD Anti-Racism Initiative (UDARI)
Biography
Alison M. Parker is Richards Professor of American History. She has research and teaching interests at the intersections of gender, race, disability, citizenship and the law in U.S. history. She majored in art history and history at the University of California, Berkeley and earned her PhD from the Johns Hopkins University. In 2017-2018, Parker was an Andrew W. Mellon Advanced Fellow at the James Weldon Johnson Institute for the Study of Race and Difference at Emory University, where she worked on her biography of the civil rights activist and suffragist Mary Church Terrell, Unceasing Militant: The Life of Mary Church Terrell (University of North Carolina Press, 2020). Her op-ed “When White Women Wanted a Monument to Black 'Mammies,'" appeared in the New York Times (February 6, 2020). Parker is also the author of two historical monographs, Articulating Rights: Nineteenth-Century American Women on Race, Reform, and the State (2010) and Purifying America: Women, Cultural Reform, and Pro-Censorship Activism, 1873–1933 (1997). She has co-edited three anthologies and authored numerous articles and book chapters. Her most recent article is “Oscar Stanton DePriest: Republican Politics, the Strategy of Non-Partisanship, and the Struggle for Civil Rights,” in The Journal of African American History (V, 108, n. 4, Fall 2023). Parker is trained to lead anti-racism and racial justice workshops and community conversations and is working to recruit and retain a diverse community of faculty and students.
Education
- Ph.D., The Johns Hopkins University, History, 1993.
- M.A., The Johns Hopkins University, History, 1990.
- B.A., University of California, Berkeley, History and the History of Art, Phi Beta Kappa, 1988.
Recent Media
Research Interview with Mary Church Terrell Papers Interns, Connecting Communities Digital Initiative (CCDI), Library of Congress, Fall 2023.
Podcast Interview by Caree Banton, for KUAF's Undisciplined, Spring 2023.
Radio Interview by Gerald Horne on Unceasing Militant, for KPFK's Freedom Now, Los Angeles and Santa Barbara, June 2022.
Publications
Books
Unceasing Militant: The Life of Mary Church Terrell, University of North Carolina Press, John Hope Franklin Series in African American History and Culture, 2020. Chosen as one of "The Best Black History Books of 2020," African American Intellectual History Society (AAIHS), Black Perspectives, December 21, 2020. Book of the Day, Foreword Reviews, December 23, 2020.
Articulating Rights: Nineteenth-Century American Women on Race, Reform, and the State, Northern Illinois University Press, 2010. https://www.niupress.niu.edu/niupress/Scripts/Book/bookResults.asp?ID=546
Purifying America: Women, Cultural Reform, and Pro-Censorship Activism, 1873-1933, University of Illinois Press, 1997.
Edited Books
Interconnections: Gender and Race in American History, edited by Alison M. Parker & Carol Faulkner (Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press, 2012, paperback 2014).
Beyond Black and White: Race, Ethnicity and Gender in the U.S. South and Southwest, edited by Stephanie Cole and Alison M. Parker, Texas A&M University Press, 2004.
Women and the Unstable State in Nineteenth-Century America, edited by Alison M. Parker and Stephanie Cole, Texas A&M University Press, 2000.
Upcoming & Recent Invited Talks
“The History and Legacy of Comstock and Censorship,” New York Historical Society, Center for Women’s History, Fall 2024.
“Black Women’s Letters to Mary Church Terrell: Exploring Epistolary Relationships,” Modern U.S. History Workshop, Binghamton University, Spring 2024.
“Fighting for Equality: Integration of the American Association of University Women (AAUW), 1946-1949,” California AAUW (virtual), February 2024.
“The Life of Mary Church Terrell,” African American Museum and Library of Oakland, California, January 2024.
“Historical Perspectives on Black Women’s Cross-Class Advocacy for Justice in the Carceral System,” Truth in Education: A 24-Hour Teach-In for America, Institute for Common Power, May 2023.
“Women’s Leadership Styles in Historical Perspective,” for the National Women’s History Museum Speakers Bureau, April 2023.
“Unceasing Militant: The Life of Mary Church Terrell," James Weldon Johnson Institute for the Study of Race and Difference, Emory University, March 2023.
Recent Conference Presentations
“Hine/Horne Book Roundtable on Natanya Duncan’s An Efficient Womanhood: Women and the Making of the Universal Negro Improvement Association,” & “Advancing the Field: Cambridge Studies on Black Women in the United States,” for the 2024 Annual Meeting and Conference of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH), September 2024.
“Confronting Continuing Racism and Inequality in Women’s History Organizations,” International Federation for Research in Women’s History Conference, Sendagaya Campus-Tsuda University, Tokyo, Japan, August 2024.
“Hidden No More: Uncovering Black Women’s History Through National Parks,” American Historical Association, January 2024.
“Biographies of Black Women Roundtable," Berkshire Conference on the History of Women, Summer 2023.
“The Power of Black Women's Biography," Organization of American Historians, Spring 2023.
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Inspiring, radical ... racist: U.S. women’s clubs grapple with their tainted past
August 25, 2024 | Written by Alice Hutton of The GuardianMany 19th-century women’s clubs in the U.S. fought for civil rights, but in ways that were segregated. “Black women were either deliberately excluded or didn’t feel welcome,” said Alison Parker, a historian and expert in 19th-century women’s clubs at the University of Delaware. -
Local professor discusses President Biden’s executive order honoring the legacy of women’s history
July 19, 2024 | Written by Delaware Public MediaAlison Parker, a University of Delaware professor of history, discussed her recent visit to the White House for the announcement of a national initiative to bolster the National Park Service’s recognition of women’s history. -
Judge Clears the Way for Confederate Memorial at Arlington to Come Down
December 20, 2023 | Written by Aimee Ortiz of The New York TimesAlison Parker, a University of Delaware professor of history, said there’s a misconception about the notion that monuments that romanticize the Confederacy need to be preserved as a representation of history. “In some cases, I think it’s OK to take down these kinds of monuments because they still carry hurtful meanings today,” she said.
