***Woman of the House*** Yesterday, we celebrated and observed the dedication of 1318 Vermont Avenue, N.W. as a museum and archives dedicated to the study and preservation of African American womens history. Today, we recognize the woman behind it all, the creator and founding Executive Director of the Mary McLeod Bethune Memorial Museum and National Archives for Black Womens History--Dr. Bettye Collier-Thomas! Born Bettye Marie Collier on February 18, 1941 in Macon, Georgia, she attended elementary schools in New York, Georgia, and Florida, and high school in Jamaica, New York. As a third-generation college graduate, Collier-Thomas was born into a family of educators, administrators, morticians, artisans, and small business owners. She initially thought she would pursue a career in law, but in the eleventh grade she was inspired by a history teacher at John Adams High School in Jamaica, New York, to become a historian. She received a Bachelor’s degree from Allen University in Columbia, South Carolina, and a Master’s degree from Atlanta University. In 1974, she became the first African American woman to receive a PhD in history from George Washington University. During her college career, she received many academic awards and honors, including induction into Alpha Kappa Mu National Honor Society, which was the African American Phi Beta Kappa organization during segregation; and Who’s Who in American Colleges and Universities. Collier-Thomas received a Presidential Scholarship to attend Atlanta University and a Ford Foundation Fellowship for doctoral studies at George Washington University. An educator and administrator for nearly 50 years, from 1966 to 1976, Dr. Collier-Thomas served as a professor and administrator at Howard University and held faculty positions at Washington Technical Institute and the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. From 1977 to 1981, she was a special consultant to the National Endowment for the Humanities, developing the agency’s first program of technical assistance to black museums and historical organizations. From 1977 to 1989, Dr. Collier-Thomas served as the founding Executive Director of the Bethune Museum and Archives, Inc. (BMA). In 1982, Congress designated this institution a National Historic Site, and in 1993, President George H.W. Bush signed legislation formally incorporating it into the Department of the Interior. From 1989 to the present, Dr. Collier-Thomas has served as associate professor of history and director of the Temple University Center for African American History and Culture. The recipient of many awards and honors, in November 1994, she received the Department of the Interior’s Conservation Service Award, in recognition of outstanding contributions to the preservation and interpretation of African American women’s history. This award, one of the highest granted to a private citizen, recognized her singular achievement in the creation and development of the Bethune Museum and Archives, Inc. In tribute to her work, Bruce Babbitt of the Department of the Interior stated that “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.” In 1985, President Ronald Reagan appointed Dr. Collier-Thomas to the National Afro-American History and Culture Commission. She has received scholarships, fellowships, and major grants from the Ford Foundation, the Lilly Endowment, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Humanities. She was featured in the 1986 special issue of Dollars and Sense as one of “America’s Top 100 Black Business and Professional Women.” During her career Dr. Collier-Thomas has rendered extensive professional service. She conceived and developed two pathbreaking conferences, the First National Scholarly Research Conference on Black Women, in 1979, and A National Conference on Black Museums: Interpreting the Humanities, in 1980. Funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, these conferences were covered by the national and international media and gave visibility to black women’s studies and black museums, both in their infancy at the time. She has served on boards and committees and has been an advisor to many professional organizations, including the Association for the Study of African American Life and History, Inc. (ASALH), Association for State and Local History, American Historical Association, and the Organization of American Historians. During its early years, she worked closely with the African American Museums Association, helping to organize the association, identifying funding, and providing housing for the organization at the Bethune Museum and Archives, Inc. Educated as an urban historian specializing in African American and American social history, during the early 1970s, she began to explore new methodologies for researching African American cultural, institutional, and women’s history. She was introduced to the rich historical African American intellectual and historical tradition, which continues to inform her work, by scholars/mentors such as Clarence A. Bacote, Samuel DuBois Cook, John Hope Franklin, and Nell Irvin Painter. By 1977, she had defined several areas for long-term research. These included a history of black theater development and black women’s organizations. Undaunted by the paucity of research and extant records in these areas, she determined to research these topics systematically. Following the founding of BMA, as she struggled to advance and articulate African American women’s history, she took to related areas of social and cultural history, including religion and the philosophy of theology articulated by black women. Having amassed extensive data in these areas, Dr. Collier-Thomas has published several books, including: Jesus, Jobs, and Justice: African American Women and Religion, Daughters of Thunder: Black Women Preachers and Their Sermons, 1850-1979, and co-editor with V. P. Franklin of Sisters in the Struggle: African American Women in the Civil Rights-Black Power Movement, and My Soul Is a Witness: A Chronology of the Civil Rights Era, 1954-1964. She is also the compiler and editor of A Treasury of African American Christmas Stories, Vols. 1 and 2. She has published numerous articles and educational materials. In addition to her position at Temple, Dr. Bettye Collier-Thomas is a Public Policy Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, and she is still researching and writing. She is married to Mr. Charles J. Thomas, a retired educator and writer. Dr. Bettye Collier-Thomas, what a PHENOMENAL woman!
Posted on: Wed, 12 Nov 2014 11:00:00 +0000
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