Colloquium: Blair Kelley, UNC Chapel Hill

Black Folk: My Approach to Study of the Roots of the Black Working Class

Blair Kelley, Joel R. Williamson Distinguished Professor and Director of the Center for the Study of the American South

Biography

Blair LM Kelley, Ph.D. is an award-winning author, historian, and scholar of the African American experience. A dedicated public historian, Kelley works to amplify the histories of Black people, chronicling the everyday impact of their activism. Kelley is currently the Joel R. Williamson Distinguished Professor of Southern Studies at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill and the director of the Center for the Study of the American South, the first Black woman to serve in that role in the center’s thirty-year history.

Education

• B.A. from the University of Virginia in History and African and African American Studies.
• M.A. and Ph.D. in History, and graduate certificates in African and African American Studies and Women’s Studies at Duke University.