Robert Jefferson Named Director of Africana Studies at the University of New Mexico

Robert Jefferson was named director of the Africana studies program at the University of New Mexico. He will begin his new role on July 1. Currently, he is an associate professor in the history department at the University of Alabama Birmingham and has led the African American studies program at the university. Before joining the faculty at the University of Alabama Birmingham, he was an associate professor in the history department at Xavier University.

Professor Jefferson is the author of Fighting for Hope: African American Troops of the 93d Infantry Division in World War II and Postwar America (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009). He is currently working on a new book with the title The Color of Disability: Vasco Hale and Twentieth Century America.

Dr. Jefferson is a graduate of Elon University in North Carolina, where he majored in political science. He holds a master’s degree from Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia, and a Ph.D. in American history from the University of Michigan.