Leith Patricia Mullings (April 8, 1945 – December 13, 2020) was a Jamaican-born author, anthropologist and professor. She was president of the

American Anthropological Association The American Anthropological Association (AAA) is an organization of scholars and practitioners in the field of anthropology. With 10,000 members, the association, based in Arlington, Virginia, includes archaeologists, cultural anthropologists, ...

from 2011–2013, and was a Distinguished Professor of Anthropology at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. Mullings was involved in organizing for progressive social justice, racial equality and economic justice as one of the founding members of the

Black Radical Congress The Black Radical Congress or BRC is an organization founded in 1998 in Chicago. It is a grassroots network of individuals and organizations of African descent focused on advocating for broad progressive social justice, racial equality and economi ...

and in her role as President of the AAA. Under her leadership, the American Anthropological Association took up the issue of academic labor rights. Her research and writing focused on structures of inequality and resistance to them. Her research began in Africa and she wrote about traditional medicine and religion in postcolonial Ghana, as well as about women’s roles in Africa. In the U.S. her work centered on urban communities. She was recognized for this work by the

Society for the Anthropology of North America The American Anthropological Association (AAA) is an organization of scholars and practitioners in the field of anthropology. With 10,000 members, the association, based in Arlington, Virginia, includes archaeologists, cultural anthropologists, B ...

, which awarded her the Prize for Distinguished Achievement in the Critical Study of North America in 1997. Mullings was working on an ethnohistory of the

African Burial Ground African Burial Ground National Monument is a monument at Duane Street and African Burial Ground Way (Elk Street) in the Civic Center section of Lower Manhattan, New York City. Its main building is the Ted Weiss Federal Building at 290 Broadway. ...

in New York City at the time of her death.

Publications

*1984 ''Therapy, Ideology and Social Change: Mental Healing in Urban Ghana'', Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. *1987 ''Cities of the United States: Studies in Urban Anthropology,'' editor, New York: Columbia University Press. *1997 ''On Our Own Terms: Race, Class and Gender in the Lives of African American Women'', New York: Routledge. *2001 ''Stress and Resilience: The Social Context of Reproduction in Central Harlem'', New York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers (with Alaka Wali). *2002 ''Freedom: A Photographic History of the African American Struggle'', London: Phaidon Press. Awarded a Krazna-Krausz Foundation Book Prize (with

Manning Marable William Manning Marable (May 13, 1950 – April 1, 2011) was an American professor of public affairs, history and African-American Studies at Columbia University.Grimes, William"Manning Marable, Historian and Social Critic, Dies at 60" ''The Ne ...

). *2009 ''Let Nobody Turn Us Around: An Anthology of African American Social and Political Thought from Slavery to the Present'', Second Edition, Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield (co-edited with

References

External links

Leith Mulling's Official Website
* http://www.gc.cuny.edu/Page-Elements/Academics-Research-Centers-Initiatives/Doctoral-Programs/Anthropology/Faculty-Listing/Leith-Mullings
AAA President

Anthropology News

SANA , Society for the Anthropology of North America

The Sojourner Syndrome: Race, Class, and Gender in Health and Illness
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mullings, Leith 1945 births 2020 deaths City University of New York faculty American women anthropologists 20th-century American anthropologists 20th-century American women writers 21st-century American anthropologists 21st-century American women writers Queens College, City University of New York alumni Cornell University alumni University of Chicago alumni People from Mandeville, Jamaica American women academics