Photo credits: University of Delaware/20th Century Studios

The University of Delaware (UD) hosted a live-online presentation on Wednesday (November 18). The event began at 2 p.m.

Monet Lewis-Timmons (pictured left) discussed her passion for Black women’s literature and history through her research on Alice Dunbar-Nelson (1875-1935). A Black woman, writer, educator, and activist, Dunbar-Nelson catered to the Wilmington, Delaware, and Philadelphia communities through Black youth education, anti-lynching campaigns, and journalism.

Lewis-Timmons’ research focuses on Dunbar-Nelson’s archive, which is housed at the UD. Through archival research and public scholarship, Lewis-Timmons explored the complexities of 20th-century Black women’s lives and how her research revealed the parallels between the past and present.

Lewis-Timmons, who received her B.A. in English and African American studies at Emory University, is a third-year English doctoral student and an African American Public Humanities Initiative (AAPHI) fellow at UD. Her research focuses on Black women in the archive from the late 19th century to the early 20th century.

Through public humanities work, Lewis-Timmons’ research uncovers the fragments of these archives to reveal the complexities of these women’s lives to make a larger intervention about Black women’s lived experiences across space and time.

Reference: King, C. (2020 November) Highlighting Hidden Figures: Exploring Black Women in the Archive. Retrieved from https://events.udel.edu/event/highlighting_hidden_figures_exploring_black_women_in_the_archive#.X7Xo-GVKjIU

*BlackThen.com writer and historian Victor Trammell edited and contributed to this report.