Bettye Collier-Thomas (born Bettye Marie Collier, February 18, 1941) is a scholar of
African-American
African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ensl ...
women's history.
Early life and education
Collier-Thomas was born the second of three children of Joseph Thomas Collier, a business executive and public school teacher, and Katherine (Bishop) Collier, a public school teacher. She attended elementary schools in
New York,
Georgia
Georgia most commonly refers to:
* Georgia (country), a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia
* Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the Southeast United States
Georgia may also refer to:
Places
Historical states and entities
* Related to the ...
, and
Florida
Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and to ...
, and high school in
Jamaica, New York
Jamaica is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Queens. It is mainly composed of a large commercial and retail area, though part of the neighborhood is also residential. Jamaica is bordered by Hollis to the east; St. Albans, Springf ...
. Her family belonged to the black middle class, with professions such as nurse, building subcontractor, and barber represented among her near relatives as well as teacher and businessman. Her great-uncle Frank Richard Veal was an African Methodist Episcopal minister and president of the historically black
Allen University
Allen University is a private historically black university in Columbia, South Carolina. It has more than 600 students and still serves a predominantly Black constituency. The campus is listed on the National Register of Historic Places as All ...
(
South Carolina
)'' Animis opibusque parati'' ( for, , Latin, Prepared in mind and resources, links=no)
, anthem = " Carolina";" South Carolina On My Mind"
, Former = Province of South Carolina
, seat = Columbia
, LargestCity = Charleston
, LargestMetro = ...
) and
Paul Quinn College
Paul Quinn College (PQC) is a private historically black Methodist college in Dallas, Texas. The college is affiliated with the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME). It is the oldest historically black college west of the Mississippi River a ...
(
Texas
Texas (, ; Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2020, it is the second-largest U.S. state by ...
).
[Scanlon, Jennifer, and Shaaron Cosner. ''American Women Historians, 1700s–1990s''. Greenwood Publishing Group, 1996.] She thought that she would go into law, but an 11th grade teacher inspired her to become an historian instead. She hyphenated her name upon marriage to Charles J. Thomas, an educator (deceased) and writer.
Collier-Thomas was awarded bachelor's degree at
Allen University
Allen University is a private historically black university in Columbia, South Carolina. It has more than 600 students and still serves a predominantly Black constituency. The campus is listed on the National Register of Historic Places as All ...
, where she was inducted into the
Alpha Kappa Mu
The Alpha Kappa Mu National Honor Society () is an American collegiate honor society recognizing academic excellence in all areas of study.
History
Alpha Kappa Mu was founded on at Tennessee A&I State College. Alpha Kappa Mu Honor Society grew ...
National Honor Society (the black
Phi Beta Kappa
The Phi Beta Kappa Society () is the oldest academic honor society in the United States, and the most prestigious, due in part to its long history and academic selectivity. Phi Beta Kappa aims to promote and advocate excellence in the liberal ...
during segregation). She won a Presidential Scholarship to attend
Atlanta University
Clark Atlanta University (CAU or Clark Atlanta) is a private, Methodist, historically black research university in Atlanta, Georgia. Clark Atlanta is the first Historically Black College or University (HBCU) in the Southern United States. Fou ...
, where she received the master's degree. In 1974, supported by a Ford Foundation Fellowship, she became the first black woman to receive a Ph.D. in history from
George Washington University
The George Washington University (GW or GWU) is a Private university, private University charter#Federal, federally chartered research university in Washington, D.C. Chartered in 1821 by the United States Congress, GWU is the largest Higher educat ...
.
Career
Between 1966 and 1976, Collier-Thomas held various positions in academia, including serving as a professor and administrator at
Howard University
Howard University (Howard) is a Private university, private, University charter#Federal, federally chartered historically black research university in Washington, D.C. It is Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education, classifie ...
and holding faculty positions at Washington Technical Institute and the
University of Maryland, Baltimore County
The University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) is a public research university in Baltimore County, Maryland. It has a fall 2022 enrollment of 13,991 students, 61 undergraduate majors, over 92 graduate programs (38 master, 25 doctoral, ...
. In 1977, she was hired as a special consultant to the
National Endowment for the Humanities
The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) is an independent federal agency of the U.S. government, established by thNational Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act of 1965(), dedicated to supporting research, education, preserv ...
, for which she developed the NEH's first program of technical assistance to black museums and historical organizations. That same year, she became the founding executive director of the Mary McLeod Bethune Memorial Museum and National Archives for Black Women's History (BMA) in Washington, D.C., which was headquartered in a former private house. In 1982, the BMA was designated a National Historic Site and its name changed to the
Mary McLeod Bethune Council House National Historic Site
The Mary McLeod Bethune Council House National Historic Site preserves the house of Mary McLeod Bethune, located in Northwest Washington, D.C., at 1318 Vermont Avenue NW. National Park Service rangers offer tours of the home, and a video about ...
. As an "Affiliate Unit of the National Park Service" it received a small annual stipend, however BMA was forced to raise its own funding to support several positions, programming and exhibitions. Grants and funding from NEH and NEA, the Ford and Rockefeller foundations, Lilly Endowment, Washington, DC Humanities, and small donations from General Electric, local banks and individuals contributed to the institutions growth and success.
In 1995 the US Congress Today, under the direction of the National Park Service the institution has been converted to a house museum focused upon the life and history of Mary McLeod Bethune and the
National Archives for Black Women's History National Archives for Black Women's History (formerly the National Council of Negro Women's National Library, Archives, and Museum) is an archive located at 3300 Hubbard Rd, Landover, Maryland. It is dedicated to cataloguing, restoring and preservin ...
has been moved to . It opened to the public in 1981, and under Dr. Collier-Thomas's direction, it became a nationally prominent institution focused upon the history of African American women. It was celebrated for its changing exhibitions and numerous programs showcasing black women as educators, social and political activists, artists, musicians and numerous topics. As
In 1994, Collier-Thomas was awarded the Department of the Interior's Conservation Service Award in recognition of her leading role in creating and developing BMA. In giving the award, then–Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt wrote:
:"Dr. Collier-Thomas has established the only repository in the country solely devoted to the collection and preservation of materials relating to African-American women in America. Other repositories may collect materials on black history or on women’s history, but no other repository gives black women their principal attention."
Collier-Thomas left BMA in 1989 to accept a joint appointment at Temple University as an associate professor in the Department of History and the inaugural director of the Temple University Center for African American History and Culture (CAAHC), a position she held for eleven years. In 1997 she was promoted to full-professor in the History Department. She is also a distinguished lecturer for the Organization of American Historians and a public policy Fellow at the
Woodrow Wilson Center
The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars (or Wilson Center) is a quasi-government entity and think tank which conducts research to inform public policy. Located in the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center in Was ...
.
As a scholar, Collier-Thomas specializes in the social and political history of African-American women and has written on topics such as black theater, religion, and women's organizations. She argues that too many historians write as if race is the only locus of discrimination for African-Americans. In her view, African-American women suffer from being framed simultaneously by race, class, and gender—a kind of "oppression-in-triplicate". This experience, in turn, provides them with a strong ground from which to speak truth.
Collier-Thomas's book ''Jesus, Jobs and Justice'' (2010) examines the ways in which both black and white Protestant women dealt with racial issues in the first half of the 20th century, prefiguring the emergence of the
Civil Rights Movement
The civil rights movement was a nonviolent social and political movement and campaign from 1954 to 1968 in the United States to abolish legalized institutional racial segregation, discrimination, and disenfranchisement throughout the Unite ...
. Her ''Daughters of Thunder'' (1998) is an anthology of 19th and 20th century sermons by black women, selected from a collection amassed by Collier-Thomas over the course of two decades. Such sermons by women were rarely collected or recorded, making this anthology especially useful as source material for other scholars.
[Bair, Barbara. "Daughters of Thunder: Black Women Preachers and Their Sermons, 1850–1979. By Bettye Collier-Thomas. ''The Journal of American History'' 85.4 (1999): 1617-1618. (book review)]
Selected publications
Author
*''Jesus, Jobs and Justice: African American Women and Religion''. Random House, 2010.
*"John Hope Franklin: Mentor and Confidante." ''Journal of African American History'' 94.3 (2009): 344–353.
*''Daughters of Thunder: Black Women Preachers and Their Sermons, 1850-1979''. Jossey-Bass, 1998.
*''African American Women and the Vote, 1837-1965''. Co-edited with Ann Dexter Gordon. Univ of Massachusetts Press, 1997.
*"Towards Black Feminism: The Creation of the Bethune Museum-Archives." ''Special Collections'' 3.3-4 (1985): 43–66.
*"The Impact of Black Women in Education: An Historical Overview," ''Journal of Negro Education'' 51 (Summer 1982)
Co-author and co-editor
*Franklin, V. P., and Bettye Collier-Thomas. "Biography, Race Vindication, and African American Intellectuals." ''The Journal of African American History'' (2002): 160–174.
*Collier-Thomas, Bettye, and Vincent P. Franklin, eds. ''Sisters in the Struggle: African American Women in the Civil Rights-Black Power Movement''. New York University Press, 2001.
*Collier-Thomas, Bettye, and Vincent P. Franklin.''My Soul is a Witness: A Chronology of the Civil Rights Era in the United States, 1954-1965''. Henry Holt, 2000.
*Collier-Thomas, Bettye, and James Turner. "Race, Class and Color: The African American Discourse on Identity." ''Journal of American Ethnic History'' (1994): 5-31.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Collier-Thomas, Bettye
American women historians
African-American historians
21st-century American historians
1941 births
Living people
Academics from New York (state)
21st-century American women writers
Columbian College of Arts and Sciences alumni
Clark Atlanta University alumni
Allen University alumni