Throughout Women’s History Month 2023, the Dr. Edna B. McKenzie Branch of ASALH presents brief features on a female Branch member or a family member of the Branch member.
Dr. Sharita Jacobs Thompson, Professor of Social Sciences
Dr. Sharita Jacobs Thompson is a Professor in the Social Sciences Department at Prince George’s Community College, teaching courses in United States and African American History.
Sharita Thompson is a Professor in the Social Sciences Department at Prince George’s Community College, teaching courses in United States and African American History. She serves as an independent scholar and consultant, providing training to police departments across the country.
She teaches a course titled The History of Policing in African American Communities (which includes a curated tour of the National Museum of African American History and Culture), conducts implicit bias training, and facilitates conversations around social and racial equity topics and structural and institutional racism. She also provides consultation for Ford’s Theater, the National Park Service, and the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH).
Sharita served as a subject area expert on CNN’s This is Life with Lisa Ling, the History Channel documentary, Aftershock: Beyond the Civil War, and appeared on the CSPAN3 series Lectures in American History. She is a former Assistant Professor of Civil War Era and Africana Studies at Gettysburg College. Her research focuses on Black Marylanders’ experiences during the American Civil War and Reconstruction era. Thompson recently completed a book chapter, “The Failed Promise of Reconstruction,” included in an edited volume titled The Civil War in Maryland Reconsidered (Louisiana University Press, 2022).
She was the Co-Chair of ASALH’s 2023 Black History Month Festival. One of ASALH’s signature Black History Month programs featured the Dr. Edna B. McKenzie Branch in a program titled Resistance and the Black Press where Branch member, Tamara M. Saunders was one of the panelists.
*Dr. Sharita Thompson is the wife of Robert Thompson who is the cousin of McKenzie Branch Member, Ruth Ann Still.
Ronald B. Saunders, President of Dr.Edna B. McKenzie Branch of ASALH
DR. EDNA B. MCKENZIE BRANCH OF ASALH 