Leigh Soares

Department / Division

  • History
  • African American Studies

Title

  • Assistant Professor

Contact

Email: lsoares@history.msstate.edu
Phone: 662-325-3604

Address

  • 214 Allen Hall

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

CV


Publications

Book Review


Presentations

Oral Presentation

  • "Forgotten Founders: Black Women Leaders in Higher Education." Women's History Month Virtual Brown Bag Series, MSU Gender Studies, Virtual. 2021

Paper

  • "“Their Just Education Rights”: Black Officeholders and the Campaign for Public Black Colleges." OAH Annual Meeting 2021, Organization of American Historians, Virtual. 2021