View the full 2022 conference video here.

Presenters and Musicians

Learn about this year’s guests.

Dr. Carole Bucy

Carole Bucy is the current Davidson County Historian and a professor of history at Volunteer State Community College. She holds degrees in history from Baylor University, George Peabody College, and Vanderbilt University. She is the author of numerous articles about Tennessee women. In 2015, she received a grant from the Southern Historical Society to do research on Tennessee’s Woman’s Christian Temperance Union at the Frances Willard Library in Evanston, Illinois. Her most recent work is “Educate! Agitate! Organize!: The Power of Female Leadership in the Prohibition Movement in Tennessee,” which will be published in 2022 in a volume of essays on Progressive Women in Tennessee. During the past year, Dr. Bucy has given 16 lectures for the Tennessee Historical Society and has served as a consultant on several woman suffrage projects, including the Votes for Women! Room at the Nashville Public Library, the East Tennessee Historical Society, and the Tennessee State Museum.

Dr. Sekou Franklin

Sekou Franklin is the author of After the Rebellion: Social Movement Activism and Popular Mobilization among the Post-Civil Rights Generation (NYU Press, 2014), co-author of Losing Power: African Americans and Racial Polarization in Tennessee Politics (University of Georgia Press, 2020), and editor of State of Blacks in Middle Tennessee (Urban League of Middle Tennessee, 2010/2011). He has published other works on racial identity, healthcare, social movements, juvenile justice, the death penalty, Venezuelan politics, and state and local politics. He was the lead investigator of the Dallas County Area Study/Black Rural Project. He also served as President of the National Conference of Black Political Scientists from 2019-2021.

Dr. Harriet Kimbro-Hamilton

Harriet Kimbro-Hamilton is the daughter of former Negro League Baseball star Henry Kimbro. She is a retired Associate Professor from Tennessee State University. She is a native Nashvillian who graduated with a B.S. degree in Health and Physical Education from Fisk University, an M.S. in Sports Administration from Florida State University, and a doctorate in Sports and Recreational Management from Temple University. She has received numerous awards for her work in women’s sports and Negro Leagues research. In 2015, she published her first book called Daddy’s Scrapbook: Henry Kimbro of the Negro Baseball League, A Daughter’s Perspective. The book received the Robert Peterson Recognition Award at the 19^th Annual Jerry Malloy Negro League Conference. In 2020, Dr. Hamilton published her second book with her son Patrick Hamilton called Home Plate: Henry Kimbro and Other Negro Leaguers of Nashville, Tennessee. This book was donated to every Nashville public middle and high school library by the Nashville Sounds Baseball Organization. Dr. Kimbro-Hamilton’s latest Negro League project is to have Negro League Team Owner Tom Wilson voted into the Tennessee Sports Hall of Fame for the class of 2022.

Dr. Magana J. Kabugi

Magana J. Kabugi is the Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow at Fisk University, where his teaching and research focus on African American literary and cultural studies, Black intellectual history, and historically Black colleges and universities. His work has been featured in national publications including Diverse Issues in Higher Education and HBCU Digest. He has given talks at a number of institutions, including Morehouse College, Fisk University, Howard University, Tennessee State Museum, and Virginia Theological Seminary. Dr. Kabugi holds a B.A. in English Language and Literature from American University and a Ph.D. in English from Vanderbilt University.

Dr. Rachel Louise Martin

Rachel Louise Martin is a writer and historian. Her work has appeared in O Magazine, Oxford American, The Atlantic online and CityLab. Her first book, Hot Chicken: A Nashville Story, used the history of hot chicken to trace the story of urban development and segregation in Nashville. Out of the Silence, her second book, will be published by Simon & Schuster in 2023. It will tell the story of the desegregation of Clinton High School. She earned a doctorate in women’s and gender history from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

Dr. Earl Wright, II

Earl Wright, II is Professor of Sociology at Rhodes College in Memphis, Tennessee. He earned a B.A. (1994) in History and an M.A. (1997) in Sociology from the University of Memphis. In 2000, Dr. Wright took the doctorate in Sociology at the University of Nebraska, where he founded a chapter of the Black Graduate Student Association. Later that year, he joined the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at the University of Central Florida. Over his career, he served on faculty at Fisk University, Texas Southern University (as chairperson of the Department of Sociology), the University of Cincinnati and, now, at Rhodes College.

Dr. Wright has authored numerous books and articles on the contributions of African Americans and HBCUs (historically Black colleges and universities) to the discipline of sociology. He is the nation’s leading authority on W.E.B. DuBois and the Atlanta Sociological Laboratory—the moniker bestowed on scholars engaged in sociological inquiry at Atlanta University (now called Clark Atlanta University) between 1895 and 1917—and his groundbreaking research has altered our understanding of the discipline’s formative years in this nation. It is because of his excellence in “research on race and the South” that he was presented with the Charles S. Johnson Award by the Southern Sociological Society. Dr. Wright is currently co-editor of the highly rated journal Social Problems, past president of the Association of Black Sociologists and Mid-South Sociological Association, and was recently elected president of the nation’s second largest professional sociology organization, Southern Sociological Society.

Jeff Sellers

Jeff Sellers is the Director of Education and Community Engagement at the Tennessee State Museum, where he has served in various roles for over 16 years, including as the Curator of Education and Museum Programs Coordinator. He is the co-founder of Bearing Tree Learning, LLC, an educational map publishing company that provides interactive floor maps to classrooms, and owner of Echoes of Nashville Tours, LLC. Sellers is the recipient of numerous honors and awards from the American Association of State & Local History, Tennessee Association of Museums, and the State of Tennessee and has served as President of the Inter-Museum Council of Nashville since 2012. He holds a bachelor’s degree in History with a Minor in Business Administration from Auburn University, a master’s degree in Education from the University of Montevallo, and a master’s degree in History from Middle Tennessee State University.

Sommer Jade Adwaters

Based out of Nashville, Sommer Jade infuses poetry and spoken word with music, to create PoetiVerses. A lyricist at heart, with a passion for reciting poetry, Jade credits all of the art to the Divine Intelligence of the Most High God. With a blend of poetic truth and passionate love for music, the perspective of her work is to speak life. 

TSU Meistersingers

The Meistersingers of Tennessee State University is the premier chamber choral ensemble at TSU. It is an auditioned choral ensemble and many members also participate in TSU’s larger choral ensemble, the University Choir. The original Meistersingers were formed in the 1940s under the direction of Dr. Eddie Goins, Professor of Voice and director of the University Choir. Only outstanding students in voice were chosen to become members. Consequently, the original Meistersingers consisted of twelve to sixteen members. They were the Ambassadors for the University, performing for special functions in the state of Tennessee as well as traveling to other states. This group continued to gain popularity for several years and in the late 1950s dissolved. After the death of Dr. Goins in 1979, the Meistersingers emerged in his memory. The current Meistersingers, under the direction of Dr. Susan Kelly, consists of twelve to sixteen members and is open to both music majors and non-music majors. The ensemble performs a wide variety of choral literature, from Renaissance to African-American Spirituals. Recent performances have included spotlight chamber ensemble performances at the TMEA state conference and several performances with the Nashville Philharmonic, including the premiere of Anthony Plog’s Magdalene: A Cantata, which honors the work done by Magdalene House and Thistle Farms. Additionally, members of the Meistersingers have been chosen to participate in regional and national ACDA collegiate honor choirs.

Soul Fire

Soul Fire Poetry Group is a departmental organization that meets once a week to hone poetry writing and performance skills, organize open mic performances, and to workshop their ideas. It features a Poet Mentor from Southern Word, who helps students craft their skills. Affiliated with Tennessee State University’s English Department, their mantra is: “We want live words of the hip world live flesh & coursing blood. Hearts Brains Souls splintering fire.” – from Black Art, Amiri Baraka

Profiles

The 2022 NCAAHC Planning Committee

• Linda Wynn, Tennessee Historical Commission – Co-Chair
• Dr. Learotha Williams, Jr., Tennessee State University—Co-Chair
• Glenda Alvin, Tennessee State University
• Pamela Bobo, Tennessee State University
• Dr. Joel Dark, Tennessee State University
• Caroline Eller, Metro Historical Commission
• Dr. K. T. Ewing, Tennessee State University
• Gloria McKissack, Tennessee State University (ret.)
• Dr. Brandon Owens, Fisk University 
• Jamaal Sheats, Fisk University
• Sharon Hull Smith, Tennessee State University
• Tim Walker, Metro Historical Commission