Crystal Fleming has been appointed professor of Africana studies with tenure at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts. She currently serves as a professor of sociology and Africana Studies at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. She is the author of numerous books including Resurrecting Slavery: Racial Legacies and White Supremacy in France (Temple University Press, 2017) and How to Be Less Stupid About Race: On Racism, White Supremacy, and the Racial Divide (Beacon Press, 2018).
Dr. Fleming is a graduate of Wellesley College in Massachusetts where she double-majored in sociology and French. She holds a master’s degree and Ph.D. in sociology from Harvard University.
Cheri Beasley, the first Black woman to serve as chief justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court and the fourth Black woman to serve as chief justice on any state Supreme Court, has been named the inaugural Justice Sandra Day O’Connor Endowed Professor at the Elon University School of Law. She was appointed to the Supreme Court of North Carolina in 2014, and elevated to chief justice in 2019.
Beasley received a bachelor’s degree from Rutgers University in New Jersey, a master of laws degree in judicial studies from Duke University, and a juris doctorate from the University of Tennessee.
Jacqueline Brooks has joined the faculty of the School of Education at Tuskegee University in Alabama. She first joined the university in 2023 as the assessment and field placement coordinator.
Dr. Brooks is a graduate of Alabama State University where she earned her bachelor’s degree in secondary education and teaching. She received her master’s degree and a Ph.D. in educational leadership from Nova Southeastern University in Florida.
Stacy Smallwood has been named executive director of the Faith COMPASS Center in the School of Divinity at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. He is currently the founding director of the Office of Health Equity and Community Engagement in the Jiann-Ping Hsu College of Public Health at Georgia Southern University. He also serves as an associate professor of community health with an additional appointment in the women’s, gender, and sexuality studies program.
Dr. Smallwood earned his bachelor’s degree in health and exercise science from Wake Forest University. He received a master of public health degree and a Ph.D. from the Arnold School of Public Health at the University of South Carolina.
