Dr. Carolyn Brown enjoying dinner at the end of the symposium, surrounded by colleagues, family, and friends.
The photographs on these pages were taken by Jennifer Jones and conference guests and participants.
On March 28, the Rutgers community came together to celebrate Carolyn Brown’s scholarship, teaching, and many contributions to African History and African Studies.
The day was filled with scholarly presentations by historians trained by Dr. Brown as well as her colleagues and scholarly collaborators on topics including slavery, nationalism, gender in labor history, and public history. The symposium culminated with a festive dinner and a celebration of global Hip-Hop that lasted well into the night, providing a fitting celebration of Carolyn’s rich and multifaceted career.
The whole Rutgers community gives thanks for Carolyn’s presence in our community since 1991. Her many scholarly publications include the co-edited books Africa and World War II (2015) and Repercussions of the Atlantic Slave Trade: the Interior of the Bight of Biafra and the African Diaspora (2011) and her book “We Are All Slaves”: African Miners, Culture, and Resistance at the Enugu Government Colliery (2003).
Equally fascinating and important is Carolyn’s public history project, Global Timbuktu: Meanings and Narratives of Resistance in Africa and the Americas, which links African and African-American history. This multi-faced project focused on two free Black settlements in antebellum America named after the Malian city of Islamic learning, Timbuktu.
Carolyn’s extensive leadership with the historical profession and the field of African Studies includes serving as senior editor of the journal International Labor and Working Class History and as president of the African Studies Association.
Symposium Speakers
Dorothy Hodgson
Stephane Robolin
Ousseina Alidou
Guy Weston
Kristin O’Brassill-Kulfan
Robin Chapdelaine
Paul Lovejoy
Laura Ann Twagira
Ahmad Sikainga
Abosede George
Judith Byfield
Moya Bedward
Ben Twagira
Gregory Mann
Bredan Kibee
Dedan Anderson
