Leslie M. Harris facts for kids

Leslie Maria Harris is an American historian and expert in African American Studies. She teaches history and African American Studies at Northwestern University. Professor Harris studies the history of African Americans in the United States. She has written about slavery in New York City and the American South. She also explores how historians write about slavery.

Education and Career

Early Education and Degrees

Leslie Harris went to Columbia University. She earned her first degree, a Bachelor of Arts (BA), in 1988. She studied American history and literature there. After Columbia, she attended Stanford University. She received her Master of Arts (MA) degree in American History in 1993. Then, she earned her Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in American history in 1995. Her studies also included African history and humanities.

Teaching and Research Roles

From 1994 to 1995, Dr. Harris was a researcher at the University of Maryland at College Park. In 1995, she became a history professor at Emory University. She taught at Emory until 2016. Starting in 2003, she also worked with Emory's African American Studies department. She even led that department for several years. She helped start and direct the Transforming Community Project at Emory. In 2011, she received a special award called the Winship Distinguished Research Professorship. This award honors professors who have achieved great things in research.

In 2016, Professor Harris moved to Northwestern University. There, she became a professor in both the history and African American studies departments.

Fellowship at Harvard

Dr. Harris was chosen as a special fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University for 2020–2021. During this time, she worked on a book. This book explores Hurricane Katrina by looking at family history and how climate change affects people.

Key Research and Books

Slavery in New York City

In 2003, Professor Harris published her book, In the Shadow of Slavery: African Americans in New York City, 1626-1863. This book looks at the history of slavery in New York City. It covers the 17th, 18th, and especially the 19th centuries. She focused on the 1830s and 1840s. She studied how Black community groups in the city helped African Americans. These groups started as informal networks. They offered help, education, and support. They grew into formal organizations that shaped the lives of Black residents.

In the Shadow of Slavery won the Wesley-Logan Prize in 2003. This award is given for an outstanding book about African diaspora history. In 2005, she co-edited Slavery in New York with Ira Berlin. This book was published alongside an exhibition about slavery in New York at the New-York Historical Society.

Universities and Slavery

In 2011, Dr. Harris organized the first conference about slavery and universities. This event took place at Emory University. This conference led to a book she co-edited in 2019. The book is called Slavery and the University: Histories and Legacies. She worked on it with James T. Campbell and Alfred L. Brophy. The book's chapters explore the history of American higher education. They show how universities were connected to slavery in the past.

Slavery in the American South

Professor Harris has also co-edited two books with Daina Ramey Berry. The first was Slavery and Freedom in Savannah, published in 2014. This book looks at slavery in Savannah, Georgia, before the Civil War. It connects with the preservation of slave quarters at the Owens–Thomas House. The book shows how urban slavery fit into the larger picture of slavery in the American South. It also highlights Savannah as a unique area. While it focuses on slavery in Savannah, it also discusses its effects up to the Civil Rights Movement in the mid-1900s.

Harris and Berry also co-edited the 2018 book ... and Slavery: Reclaiming Intimate Histories in the Americas. This collection uses available evidence to understand how personal relationships and lives worked in the harsh world of slavery.

Public Education and The 1619 Project

Dr. Harris has done a lot to educate the public about African American history. She was one of the historians who advised The New York Times on The 1619 Project. She has said that the project was a "much-needed corrective" to older, overly positive histories. She also noted that while she disagreed with one specific claim, the project was important. She believes that ignoring her advice on that point allowed critics to try and discredit the whole project.

Selected Works

• In the Shadow of Slavery: African Americans in New York City, 1626-1863 (University of Chicago Press, 2003)
• Slavery in New York, co-edited with Ira Berlin, (New Press, 2005)
• Slavery and freedom in Savannah, co-edited with Daina Ramey Berry (University of Georgia Press, 2014)
• ... and Slavery: Reclaiming Intimate Histories in the Americas, co-edited with Daina Ramey Berry (University of Georgia Press, 2018)
• Slavery and the University: Histories and Legacies, co-edited with James T. Campbell and Alfred L. Brophy (University of Georgia Press, 2019)