Dr. Leigh Soares

Overview

Summary:

Leigh Soares is an Assistant Professor of History at Mississippi State University. She is also a faculty affiliate with the African American Studies Program. She studies African American history in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Her current book manuscript, Cradles of Citizenship: Public Black Colleges and Political Engagement from Reconstruction to Jim Crow, reveals higher education as an incubator for Black political organizing and leadership development in the post-Civil War South. Support for this project has come from the NAEd/Spencer Foundation and the Richards Civil War Era Center.

Dr. Soares offers courses in U.S. history and African American history. Her teaching interests include: Black political history; African American women; Civil War and Reconstruction; race and gender in the American South; the history of social movements.

Education:

• Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), History, Northwestern University, 2019
• Master of Arts (M.A.), History, College of William and Mary, 2012
• Bachelor of Arts (B.A.), History, Duke University, 2010