Allida Black

Allida Black is a Research Professor of History and International Affairs. Black was founding editor of The Eleanor Roosevelt Papers, a project designed to preserve, teach and apply Eleanor Roosevelt's writings and discussions of human rights and democratic politics. She directed the editorial team producing The Eleanor Roosevelt Papers: Volume I, The Human Rights Years, 1945-1948, (Scribners, January 2008 and University of Virginia Press, 2009). Her other publications include four books — Casting Her Own Shadow: Eleanor Roosevelt and the Shaping of Postwar Liberalism (Columbia University Press, November 1995), "What I Want to Leave Behind:" Democracy and the Selected Articles of Eleanor Roosevelt (Carlson Publishing, April 1995); Courage In A Dangerous World: The Political Writings of Eleanor Roosevelt (Columbia University Press, 1999), and with Jewel Fenzi, Democratic Women: An Oral History of the Women's National Democratic Club (WNDC Educational Foundation, 2000) — as well as a variety of articles. Oxford University Press will publish Human Rights: Pages from History in 2009 and E.R.: Eleanor Roosevelt, Politics and the Dream of Democracy in 2011. Outside the classroom, Professor Black has written teachers' guides for PBS documentaries and served as an advisor to other documentaries prepared for PBS, the History Channel, A&E, and the Discovery Channel. Her museum work includes curating two exhibits detailing Eleanor Roosevelt's role in drafting the Universal Declaration of Human Rights for the United Nations, an electronic exhibit on ER's political career for the Franklin D Roosevelt Library and Museum, and the permanent exhibit for the Eleanor Roosevelt National Historic Site. She is currently designing a multi-media traveling exhibit on ER politics and policy. Professor Black is also a popular lecturer, delivering at least 20 talks a year before audiences ranging from the Smithsonian Institution to state and local women's commissions to human rights associations to national educational organizations. She serves on the academic advisory boards of the Sewall-Belmont House, H-Net New Deal, and H-Net Recent US. Each year she partners with the Women's Research and Education Institute to train congressional fellows to apply historical methods to the development and analysis of congressional human rights policy. Professor Black is also a Board of Governors member of the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute; an Advisory Board member of the Center for New Deal Studies; secretary of the Gaea Foundation; and a director of the Liberian Education Trust, a project designed to rebuild the Liberian public school system, rehabilitate child soldiers, and provide literacy and numeracy training to market women.