About the Speakers:
Elvatrice Belsches, BA, BS Pharm, MA, is a public historian, author and researcher who specializes in chronicling the Black experience in history. She is the author of several biographical entries for the African American National Biography (AANB), a collaborative publication of the Hutchins Center for African & African American Research with Harvard University and Oxford University Press. She has presented on her scholarship covering the Leonard Medical School graduates at the Medical College of Virginia, Shaw University, the national meeting of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH) and the Duke University / UNC-Chapel Hill Collaborative Speaker Series on the History of Medicine. She has several documentaries and publications in development.
Dr. Valerie A. Johnson, Dean of the School of Arts, Sciences & Humanities and co-director of the Center for Racial and Social Justice at Shaw University, will moderate the discussion. Dr. Johnson chairs the North Carolina African American Heritage Commission, serves on the North Carolina Historical Commission, National Register Advisory Committee and is member of the North Carolina Environmental Justice Network (NCEJN), North Carolina League of Conservation Voters (NCLCV) Board of Directors, Scarritt Bennett Center Board of Directors (Nashville, Tennessee), the Ms. Committee of Scholars and an advisor on the Humanities Action Lab’s initiative on climate change, immigration/migration and environmental justice.
