Subfloor burials - Old Cathedral - Salamanca, Spain

Rituals in the Making

I am a Senior Researcher on a study funded by the National Science Foundation that examines the processes of COVID-19 death memorialization and experiences of incomplete mourning unfolding amid contestations over knowledge and expertise. My team seeks to ask the country’s oldest and newer African American deathworkers, the specifics of this disruption as well as what rituals were remade because of the devastation. Ultimately, this oral history project hopes to answer how African American rituals (in the making) speaks truth to power in the face of COVID-19 misinformation?

19th/20th Century Undertakers

Through oral histories, archival and historical documents, this project discusses the cultural, social, local, and gendered forces which started the trade illustrating thal understanding was much more than a single and male endeavor

International Educational Excursion

To date, I have been awarded over $15,000 in grant funding to take my students to the places where history is made. Working with Four Winds Tours, I have carefully curated experiential learning to trace the a) slavery-to-freedom story in Toronto and Niagara Falls; b) Black Loyalist narrative in Nova Scotia; and c) the beginning of the Middle Passage in Ghana.

Fresh to Death

Based solely on oral histories, this project explores the multiple purposes of R.I.P. T-shirt mourning wear as part of African American last rites and memorializing.

African Burial Grounds at Historic Plantations

As the Historical Consultant, I am charged with creating written narratives, making presentations, aiding in the creation of exhibits all so that the public will understand how important burial grounds that interred Africans/African Americans are to American history - the very founding of this country.

Jim Crowing the Dead

this project follows key national, state and local court cases where African Americans fought against "negro-only" sections in public cemeteries. I trace the collective and individual actions for burial rights - the legal right to buy lots, be recognized as legal owners of burial deeds.