Meet the Editors
Sonjia Parker Redmond, DrPH
Professor Emerita of Social Work, California State University, East Bay
Dr. Sonjia Parker Redmond was born in the American South in Notasulga, Alabama, in 1946. She attended Shiloh Elementary, one of the first of over 5000 Rosenwald Schools built for the education of southern Black children by Booker T. Washington, Julius Rosenwald, and Black communities. She graduated from Tuskegee Institute High School. She later earned a bachelor’s degree in sociology from Tuskegee Institute, now Tuskegee University, a master’s degree in social work from the University of Michigan, and a doctorate in Public Health from the University of Texas.
Dr. Redmond is a professor emeritus at California State University, East Bay, and retired as Vice President of Student Affairs there. She has published in the areas of social problems, including homelessness and mental health.
She is the recipient of numerous academic and community awards, including Alameda County Woman of the Year and recognition for contributions to higher education by the California State Senate and Assembly. She was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship to teach and conduct research for a year in Bahrain, the Middle East.
Dr. Redmond and her husband Gregory have lived in, worked in, or visited over 75 countries. They have two sons, Gregory, Jr. and ShakaJamal, and five grandchildren, Jeremy, Sasha, Miya, Khensu, and Abise.
Beatrice J. Adams, PhD
Assistant Professor of History, Princeton University
Dr. Beatrice J. Adams is a historian of race, migration, and social movements whose research explores how racial and regional identities intersect to shape African Americans’ experiences of freedom and belonging. She received her Ph.D. in African American and African Diaspora History from Rutgers-New Brunswick in 2021, an MA in Social Sciences from the University of Chicago in 2013, and a BA in History and Religion & Philosophical Studies from Fisk University in 2012.
Her book in progress, We Might as Well Fight at Home: African Americans Claiming the American South, examines the experiences of African Americans who remained in and returned to the American South during the Great Migration and the emergence of the New Great Migration.
Her writing has appeared in Southern Cultures, Black Perspectives, and the award-winning book series Scarlet and Black. Her research has been supported by the Rutgers Center for Historical Analysis, the John Hope Franklin Center at Duke University, the Andrew Mellon Foundation, and the James Weldon Johnson Institute for the Study of Race and Difference at Emory University.