Amrita Chakrabarti Myers earned her doctorate in U.S. History from Rutgers University and specializes in Black Women’s History, Antebellum History, Slavery, and the American South. A committed activist, both on and off campus, Myers is regularly interviewed by media outlets ranging from PBS and NPR to Fox News on issues of race and gender justice and she has published editorials and articles on policing, anti-Blackness, and racism writ large in a variety of papers including the Washington Post and the Louisville Courier-Journal. Her first book, Forging Freedom: Black Women and the Pursuit of Liberty in Antebellum Charleston, was published by the University of North Carolina Press in 2011 and received numerous awards including the 2012 Julia Cherry Spruill Book Prize from the Southern Association of Women Historians and the 2011 Anna Julia Cooper-C.L.R. James Book Prize from the National Council for Black Studies. Her new book, The Vice President’s Black Wife: The Untold Life of Julia Chinn (Ferris & Ferris Books, 2023) is now available for pre-order at all online retailers. She is currently Ruth N. Halls Associate Professor of History and Gender Studies at Indiana University, Bloomington where she is also the Director of Graduate Studies for the Department of History.

mellon-black.png

This Sawyer Seminar is funded by the Mellon Foundation.