Women’s History Month Lecture
Saturday March 14, 2026 | 11:30 AM EST
DR. EDNA B. MCKENZIE BRANCH
Dr. Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham is the Victor S. Thomas Professor of History and of African and African American Studies at Harvard University. A tenured faculty member at Harvard since 1993, she chaired Harvard’s Department of African and African Americans Studies from 2006-2013, and chaired Harvard’s History Department from 2018-2020.
Dr. Higginbotham served from 2016-2021 as the national president of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History, which was founded in 1915 by Carter G. Woodson, the “Father of Black History. A pioneering scholar in African American women’s history, she authored the prizewinning book Righteous Discontent: The Women’s Movement in the Black Baptist Church, 1880-1920, from which came her widely discussed conceptualization “the politics of respectability.” Higginbotham is also co-author with the late John Hope Franklin of the classic text From Slavery to Freedom, which was first published in 1947. She continues the book’s long life, having written the ninth edition (2011), tenth edition (2021), and now the 2026 release.
DR. EDNA B. MCKENZIE BRANCH OF ASALH 