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Jerry Gershenhorn

Julius L. Chambers Professor of History | Director of Graduate Studies, Department of History

After earning a B.A. in economics and a B.S. in accounting at the State University of New York at Binghamton, Jerry Gershenhorn earned graduate degrees in history, an M.A. from North Carolina Central University and a Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His research and teaching interests are American history, African American history, American intellectual history, media history, and North Carolina history. In 2004, he published "Melville J. Herskovits and the Racial Politics of Knowledge" (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press). He has also published journal articles in the Journal of African American History, Journalism History, the North Carolina Historical Review, and Souls: A Critical Journal of Black Politics, Culture and Society.

He has taught at North Carolina Central University for over 25 years and is currently the Julius L. Chambers Professor of History and the director of Graduate Studies in the Department of History. In 2007, he received the North Carolina Central University Award for Teaching Excellence. He has also taught at Central Carolina Community College, North Carolina A&T State University, St. Augustine's College, and North Carolina State University.

In Spring 2009, he was a scholar-in-residence at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in New York City, where he conducted research on black scholars and the development of African Studies programs during the early Cold War era.

He appeared as an on-screen contributor and served as a consultant for the documentary film "Herskovits at the Heart of Blackness" (Vital Pictures, 2009). His second book, "Louis Austin and the Carolina Times: A Life in the Long Black Freedom Struggle" (University of North Carolina Press, 2018), won the 2018 Ragan Old North State Award for Nonfiction, which is given by the North Carolina Literary and Historical Association.

Publications

  • Anna Jones, co-author, “The Long Black Freedom Struggle in Northampton County, North Carolina, 1930s-1970s.” North Carolina Historical Review 97 (January 2020): 1-32.
  • Review of The Rise & Fall of the Associated Negro Press: Claude Barnett’s Pan-African News and the Jim Crow Paradox, by Gerald Horne. Register of the Kentucky Historical Society 117 (Spring 2019): 421-423.
  • Review of The Lost Black Scholar: Resurrecting Allison Davis in American Social Thought, by David A. Varel. History of Education Quarterly 59 (May 2019): 306-309.
  • Louis Austin and the Carolina Times: A Life in the Long Black Freedom Struggle. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2018.
  • Review of “The Most Dangerous Communist in the United States”: A Biography of Herbert Aptheker, by Gary Murrell. Journal of African American History 102 (Fall 2017): 552-554.
  • “Defying Brown, Defying Pearsall: African Americans and the Struggle for Public School Integration in North Carolina, 1954-1971.” In New Voyages to Carolina: Reinterpreting North Carolina History, eds. Larry E. Tise and Jeffrey J. Crow, 269-289. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2017.
  • “Africa and the Americas: Life and Work of Melville Herskovits.” In Bérose, Encyclopédie en ligne sur l’histoire de l’anthropologie et des savoirs ethnographiques. Paris, Lahic-iiac, 2017, UMR 8177.
  • Review of Making the Unequal Metropolis: School Desegregation and Its Limits, by Ansley T. Erickson. Journal of American History 104 (June 2017): 267-268.
  • Review of Constructing Race: The Science of Bodies and Cultures in American Anthropology, by Tracy Teslow. American Historical Review 120 (October 2015): 1502-1503.
  • Review of Selected Writings and Speeches of James E. Shepard, 1896-1946, edited by Lenwood G. Davis, with the assistance of Janie Miller. North Carolina Historical Review 91 (July 2014): 357-358.
  • Review of Greater Than Equal: African American Struggles for Schools and Citizenship in North Carolina, 1919-1965, by Sarah Caroline Thuesen. North Carolina Historical Review 91 (April 2014): 231-233.
  • “St. Clair Drake, Pan-Africanism, African Studies, and the Politics of Knowledge, 1945-1965.” Journal of African American History 98 (Summer 2013): 422-433.
  • “Melville Herskovits.” In Theory in Social and Cultural Anthropology: An Encyclopedia, Volume One, ed. R. Jon McGee and Richard L. Warms, 392-396. New York: Sage, 2013.
  • Review of In Search of the Talented Tenth: Howard University Public Intellectuals and the Dilemmas of Race, 1926-1970, by Zachery R. Williams. Journal of Southern History 77 (August 2011): 763-764.
  • "Earlie Thorpe and the Struggle for Black History, 1949-1989." Souls: A Critical Journal of Black Politics, Culture and Society 12 (October-December 2010): 376-397.
  • “Melville J. Herskovits.” In The Oxford Encyclopedia of African Thought, Vol. 1, ed. F. Abiola Irele and Biodun Jeyifo, 443-445. New York: Oxford University Press, 2010.
  • “A Courageous Voice for Black Freedom: Louis Austin and the Carolina Times in Depression-Era North Carolina.” North Carolina Historical Review 87 (January 2010): 57-92.
  • “‘Not An Academic Affair’: African American Scholars and the Development of African Studies Programs in the United States, 1942-1960.” Journal of African American History 94 (Winter 2009): 44-68.
  • Review of Higher Education and the Civil Rights Movement: White Supremacy, Black Southerners, and College Campuses. Edited by Peter Wallenstein. North Carolina Historical Review 85 (July 2008): 371-372.
  • “Louis Ernest Austin.” African American National Biography, Eds. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Vol. 1, 202-203. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008.
  • “Alfonso Elder.” African American National Biography, Eds. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Vol. 3, 163-165. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008.
  • “Conrad Odell Pearson.” African American National Biography, Eds. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Vol. 5, 292-294. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008.
  • “Earlie Endris Thorpe.” African American National Biography, Eds. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Vol. 7, 593-594. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008.
  • Review of Nathan B. Young and the Struggle over Black Higher Education, by Antonio F. Holland. Journal of Southern History 74 (February 2008): 223-224.
  • Review of A Class of Their Own: Black Teachers in the Segregated South, by Adam Fairclough. North Carolina Historical Review 84 (October 2007): 442-443.
  • Review of In Search of Nella Larsen: A Biography of the Color Line, by George Hutchinson. American Historical Review 112 (April 2007): 523-524.
  • “Double V in North Carolina: The Carolina Times and the Struggle for Racial Equality During World War II.” Journalism History 32 (Fall 2006): 156-167.
  • “Stalling Integration: The Ruse, Rise, and Demise of North Carolina College’s Doctoral Program in Education, 1951-1962.” North Carolina Historical Review 82 (April 2005): 156-192.
  • Melville J. Herskovits and the Racial Politics of Knowledge. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2004.
  • Review of The Color of Work: The Struggle for Civil Rights in the Southern Paper Industry, 1945-1980, by Timothy J. Minchin. North Carolina Historical Review 79 (July 2002): 400-401.
  • “Hocutt v. Wilson and Race Relations in Durham, North Carolina, During the 1930s.” North Carolina Historical Review 78 (July 2001): 275-308.
  • “The Encyclopedia of the Negro Project and the Racial Politics of Knowledge.” In NAAAS: Teamwork! Together We Can Achieve the Extraordinary: Proceedings of the 1998 Conference of the National Association of African-American Studies, Volume 2, ed. Lemuel Berry, Jr., 621-642. Memphis: NAAAS, 1999.