Raymond Gavins
From OHA Wiki
Raymond Gavins is a professor at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. He teaches modern America and African American History courses (1).
Background
Raymond Gavins attended Virginia Union University for his undergraduate education. During this time he was active in political protest. During his freshman year he participated in sit-ins pickets. Upon graduation at Virginia Union University in 1964, Raymond Gavins applied to the University of Virginia for graduate school. However, during this time, racial tension still filled the air. He was prepared to enter the University, and although the first couple of years were marked by social problems, such as being ignored and isolated, Gavins emerged on top as his situation steadily grew better. He would be the first African American to receive his PhD in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences from the University of Virginia.
Gavins also worked with Upper Bound, preparing students achieve the dream of attending college. He is a Co-Founder of Black Students for Freedom (2).
In 2003, Dr. Gavins was named a Woodrow Wilson Center Fellow. The fellowship has allowed him to write “The Meaning of Freedom: Black North Carolina in the Age of Jim Crow, 1880-1965”. (3)
Publications
Publications include:
Remembering Jim Crow: African Americans Tell About Life in the Segregated South (New York: The New Press, 2001).
Raymond Gavins and Iris Tillman Hill, "Jim Crow" in OAH Magazine of History 18 (, January 2004): 1-72.
"Diaspora Africans and Slavery." Africana Studies: A Survey of Africa and the African Diaspora, 3rd ed, 91-108. (2005).
"Within the Shadow of Jim Crow: Black Struggles for Education and Liberation in North Carolina." From the Grassroots to the Supreme Court: Explorations of Brown v. Board of Education and American Democracy (2004).
References
(1) Duke University, "History-People," Duke Department of History, http://fds.duke.edu/db/aas/history/faculty/raymond.gavins (accessed April 17, 2009).
(2) Ibid., http://fds.duke.edu/db/aas/history/faculty/raymond.gavins, University of Virginia, "The Trailblazers: Their Stories," University of Virginia 100 years lawn, http://www.virginia.edu/100yearslawn/HarrisonI/RGavins.html (accessed April 17, 2009).
(3) Woodrow Wilson Center, "Raymond Gavins," Woodrow Wilson Fellows and Scholars, http://www.wilsoncenter.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=sf.profile&person_id=34723 (accessed April 17, 2009).
