Three Scholars at Work on an Encyclopedia of Black History in Kentucky

Entries are currently being collected for the Kentucky African-American Encyclopedia, which the University Press of Kentucky anticipates will be published by 2011. The encyclopedia will provide a comprehensive volume of research on the black experience in the Commonwealth. It will include entries on individuals, events, places, organizations, movements, and institutions that have shaped the state’s history since its origins. It will also include topical essays on slavery, education, women, religion, sports, business, and civil rights.

The three editors of the encyclopedia are:

• John A. Hardin, an associate professor of history at Western Kentucky University. He is a graduate of Bellarmine University in Louisville. Dr. Hardin holds a master’s degree from Fisk University and a Ph.D. in history from the University of Michigan.

• Karen Cotton McDaniel is a visiting scholar at Eastern Kentucky University where she is coordinating a community of 10 scholars, each of whom is committed to submitting at least three entries for the encyclopedia each academic semester. She is professor emerita at Kentucky State University where she was director of libraries from 1989 to 2005. A graduate of Berea College, she holds a master’s degree in library science from the University of Kentucky. She is currently completing her doctoral dissertation in history on the topic of African-American women’s clubs in Kentucky.

• Gerald L. Smith is an associate professor of history at the University of Kentucky and pastor of the Farristown Baptist Church in Berea. He holds bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees in history from the University of Kentucky.

For more information on this project, click here.

Copyright © 2009. The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education. All rights reserved.