Black Women Writing, Black Archives: A Conversation Rooted in Legacy

The Thurman Series: Black Women Writing, Black Archives: A Conversation Rooted in Legacy

Join us for a panel discussion with Dr. Dana A. Williams, professor of African American literature and dean of the Graduate School at Howard University, and Angela T. Tate, Director of Collections at the Museum of African American History in Boston. The discussion will be moderated by BU Associate Professor of New Testament Rev. Dr. Shively T. J. Smith.

Reception 6 pm

Panel Discussion: 7pm

Dr. Dana A. Williams

Dana A. Williams is professor of African American literature and dean of the Graduate School at Howard University. Prior to her appointment as the first female dean of the Graduate School at Howard, she served as chair of English there for nine years. She is immediate past president of the Modern Languages Association and a former president of the College Language Association (the oldest and largest professional organization in the U.S. for faculty of color who teach languages and literature). She has also served as president of the Toni Morrison Society. Her latest book is Toni at Random: The Iconic Writer's Legendary Editorship. In 2016, she was nominated by President Barack Obama to serve as a member of the National Humanities Council. She currently serves on the Board of Directors for the National Humanities Alliance and the American Council of Learned Societies.

Angela T. Tate

Angela T. Tate is a historian and curator whose scholarship centers Black diasporic histories, with expertise in public history, African diaspora studies, and women’s history. Her research focuses on the creation, preservation, and interpretation of archives, highlighting the work of Black women as collectors, organizers, and cultural producers. She is particularly interested in material culture, sound, and performance as forms of historical expression. Angela has held curatorial and collections leadership roles at the National Museum of African American History and Culture and currently serves as Chief Curator and Director of Collections at the Museum of African American History in Boston. She is especially committed to documenting and amplifying the legacies of Black women, including figures like Etta Moten Barnett and Sue Bailey Thurman, whose archival contributions continue to shape understanding of Black women’s cultural history.

Rev. Dr. Shively T. J. Smith.

Rev. Dr. Shively T. J. Smith serves as Associate Professor of New Testament at Boston University School of Theology (Boston, MA). She completed her PhD in New Testament Studies at Emory University, publishing her first book called, Strangers to Family: Diaspora and First Peter’s Invention of God’s Household with Baylor University Press. She is completing a commentary on Second Peter for SBL Press and several articles on Diaspora in the New Testament. As a scholar of New Testament, Smith writes and teaches on all 27 books of the New Testament, but her particular focus is on the traditions of Peter and the General Letters of the New Testament, diaspora studies, approaches to biblical interpretation (hermeneutics), Womanist and African American biblical interpretation, and Howard Thurman.

This semester, the Howard Thurman Speaker Series will explore the intersections of Black women’s literary expression and Black archival labor. Drawing inspiration from the pioneering archival work of Sue Bailey Thurman—especially her foundational role in establishing the Museum of African American History in Boston—this gatheringreflects on how Black women have preserved, interpreted, and created cultural memory.

As Howard Thurman once wrote about the goals of the Howard Thurman Educational Trust: “The way by which this has been done in the history of our trust is to help our own community, the Black community, mine its own past and its own history… to develop more and more a sense of its own root, a sense of its own idiom, a sense of its own heritage… It is this sort of thinking that caused us initially to invest in the Afro-American Museum, which started in Boston during theperiod when Mrs. Thurman and I were a part of Boston University.”

This Spring event continues that vision—celebrating the legacy of Sue Bailey Thurman while spotlighting contemporary Black women curators, writers, and cultural leaders who carry the work forward.

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Host or Publisher Boston University Howard Thurman Center