2026 Program

The 2026 Conference of the North Carolina Association of Historians
Elizabeth City State University
Willie and Jacqueline Gilchrist Complex
1704 Weeksville Road, Elizabeth City, NC

Friday, March 27th

Session 1: 8:30 – 10:00

Panel 1: NC Misc.

Gilchrist 107

Dr. Boyd Harris, Chair (College of the Albemarle)

  • David Kay (UNC – Greensboro) – Rivers of Doubt: Raids, Allegiance, and Freedom-Seeking in Civil War Era North Carolina, 1862
  • Dr. David Mitchell (Wingate University) – Progress and Promise in Early 20th Century Monroe, NC
  • Dr. JoCora Moore (Elizabeth City State University) – Remembering the Rural Freedom Struggle: Public Memory and the Civil Rights Movement in Plymouth, NC

Panel 2: Public History 

Gilchrist 302

Dr. Chris Laws, Chair (NC State University)

  • Chloe Nedved (NC State University) – New Stories from Old Collections: Striving Towards More Inclusive Interpretation and Winterthur Museum, Garden, and Library
  • Talia Brenner (NC State University) – Outdoor Historical Drama as Public History
  • Neil Phipps (UNC – Greensboro) – Legacies of Hate at the Externsteine: How Bad Historical Works Echo into the Future

Panel 3: Colonialism, Revolution, and Republicanism

Gilchrist 303

Dr. Anthony Johnson, Chair (UNC – Pembroke)

  • Jonah Campbell (East Carolina University) – Gustavus Conyngham: The Forgotten Captain of the American Revolution
  • Dr. Robert Taber (Fayetteville State University) – That They Should Have My Goods and Execute My Will: Selection of Executors and Social and Political Dynamics in Late Colonial Haiti
  • Dr. Robert Scott Davis – Counterfeiting, Capitalism, and the Career of Thomas Davis in the Early Republic

Session 2 – 10:15 – 11:45

Panel 4: Asia Today and Tomorrow

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Dr. Anthony Johnson, Chair (UNC – Pembroke)

  • Dr. Dorothea Hoffman (Appalachian State University) – Switching Roles: Russia and China in the 21st Century
  • Dr. Jingbin Wang (Elizabeth City State University) – Policing the World: China Policy During the Kennedy Administration
  • Karen Shi (Duke University) – Techno-Orientalism and the Surround: Conspiracy Theory Encounter and What Comes After

Panel 5: Land, Labor, and Lore: Emerging Environmental Histories of the American South 

Gilchrist 302

– Dr. Anne Mitchell Whisnant, Chair (Duke University)

  • Lauren Ballejos (Duke University) – Food, Power, and the Political Economy of Care in the West Virginia Mine Wars
  • Kalamakaleimahoehoe Porter (UNC Chapel Hill) – The Storied Environment of Bennett Place
  • Andrea Ryan (North Carolina State University) – Conceal and Conspire: Countersurveillance under Slavery near the Dismal Swamp
  • Samantha Post (Duke University) – Coal Mining Mothers: The Cruel Science of Reproductive Health Research in the Coalfields, 1970-1995

Panel 6: American Voyages in the Lawless Pacific 

Gilchrist 303

– Kelly Welton, Chair (East Carolina University)

  • James Fowler (East Carolina University) – American Mariners in South America: Conflicting Sovereignty in the Lawless Pacific
  • Addison Costa (East Carolina University) – A Voyage of Deprivation: “Willful Murder, Alias, Brig New Hazard”
  • Dr. Eric Oakley (East Carolina University) – “Engines of Destruction”: Americans, Firearms, and Warfare in the Hawaiian Kingdom

Lunch and Keynote Speaker – 12:00 – 1:30 

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  • Frank McMahaon, Asst. Site Manager, Historic Halifax
    • “All the People Here are Ripe for Independence” – The Halifax Resolves and American Independence

Session 3 – 1:45 – 3:15

Panel 7 – A Road Out (Movie) 

Gilchrist 107 

The remarkable story of South African medical pioneers who transformed community health in the American South and beyond.

– Eric Walls, Moderator (Pitt Community College)

  • Dr. Karin Shapiro (Duke University)

Panel 8 – Jim Crow, Education, and Desegregation

Gilchrist 302

Dr. Latif A. Tarik, Chair (Elizabeth City State University)

  • Dr. John Tucker (East Carolina University) – Jim Crow and East Carolina Teachers Training School (ECTTS)
  • Olivia Townsend (NC State University) – Stand Firm; Don’t Budge One Inch: School Desegregation in Caswell County, NC
  • Flora Wadelington (North Carolina A&T University) – Four Days in April: Beyond Conflict in Crisis Toward Reconciliation and Hope (NC)
  • Dr. Glen Bowman (Elizabeth City State University) – A Pick-up Game for Historians: Piecing Together the History of Women’s Basketball at Elizabeth City State, 1925-1980

Panel 9 – Women, Gender, and Sexuality

Gilchrist 303

Dr. Chandra Waller, Chair (Wingate University)

  • Dr. Sonya Ramsey (UNC – Charlotte) – I Will Never Quit: Betty Jo Johnson and Jennifer Simmons, Two Case Studies, Black Women Factory Workers in the Carolinas from Desegregation to Globalization
  • Melissa Story (UNC – Wilmington) – Sarah Graham Kenan: Gender, Philanthropy, and White Supremacy in Early 20th Century North Carolina
  • Kathryn Hansen (University of Memphis) – A Historiographical Genealogy of Queer Studies
  • Henley Armon (NC State University) – Giovanni Giacinto Achilli v. John Henry Newman: British Attitudes Towards Anti-Catholicism and Sexual Violence in the 19th Century

Session 4 – 3:30-5:00

Panel 10 – Pedagogy

Gilchrist 303

Dr. David Mitchell, Chair (Wingate University)

  • Dr. John Brooks (Fayetteville State University) – Teaching History with AI: Integrating AI into a U.S. Survey Course
  • Dr. Lydia Walker (Barton College) – Workshop: Virtual Reality in the ClassGilchrist for Beginners
  • Tim Wu (NC State University) – Place-based Learning: Online Learning Environment for Cultural Site Study

Panel 11 – Japan in Perspective

Gilchrist 302

Dr. Dorothea Hoffman, Chair (Appalachian State University)

  • Jonathan Villanueva (East Carolina University) – Yasuke and the Study of Blackness in Japan
  • Summer Wu (Duke University) – From Emancipation to Violence: Burakumin, Citizenship, and Popular Violence in Early Meiji Japan
  • Dr. Sarah Griffith (Queens University) – Women and the Kingdom of God: Building and Fracturing Women’s Interracial Coalitions in the Trans-Pacific, 1910-1930

Panel 12 –  Voices, Places, and Memory: Collaborative Approaches to Community-Facing Histories in Northeastern North Carolina

Gilchrist 107

 – Dr. Charles Reed, Chair (Elizabeth City State University)

  • Paige Hendrickson (ECSU)
  • Dr. Latif A. Tarik (ECSU)
  • Dr. JoCara Moore (ECSU)
  • Dr. Stephanie Richmond (Norfolk State University)
  • Melba Smith (ECSU)

Closing Ceremony for Day 1 – 5:15-5:30

NCAH Business Meeting – 5:30-6:00

Dinner – 7:00 – 9:00

Saturday, March 28

Session 5 – 8:30 – 10:00

Panel 13 – Eastern Front

Gilchrist 107

Dr. Brian Edwards, Chair (College of the Albemarle)

  • Dr. Anthony Johnson (UNC – Pembroke) – The Tomsk Pogrom of October 1905
  • Elizabeth Wiseniewski (UNC – Chapel Hill) – From Tito’s Pionirs to Punks: Youth Identification in Late 20th Century Yugoslavia
  • Michael Calkins (East Carolina University) – How Pan is Pan-Turkism: Pan-Turkism’s Effects on Turkish Foreign Policy in the 1950s

Panel 14 – Triumvirate Preservation: The Reynolds Tavern Project 

– Dr. Chris Laws, Chair (NC State University)

Gilchrist 302

  • Michael Verille
  • Paul Daniel Noe

Panel 15 – Vice and Virtue: Erotics, Alcohol, and Social Media and What They Offer Our Future (UNC – Greensboro)

Eric Walls, Chair (Pitt Community College)

Gilchrist 303

  • Mars Stephens – Online Activism: Social Media’s Role in the North Carolina Black Lives Matter Protests
  • Lukas Tucker – Chains and Rings: Plantation Weddings and the Erotics of White Supremacy
  • Valessa Agoris – A Revolution is Brewing: An Analysis of North Carolina’s Alcohol Culture and its Contribution to the Revolutionary War

Session 6 – 10:15 – 11:45

Panel 16 – Institutions and Administration

Gilchrist 302

Carrie Palm, Chair (UNC Pembroke)

  • Cole Atwood (UNC – Greensboro) – Rebellion, Counterinsurgency, and the North Carolina Prison Movement in the 1970s-80s
  • Dr. Alan Lamm (Mount Olive University) – Saving History: The Story of the Free Will Baptist Historical Collection
  • Jodi Harrison (NC State University) – NC State Highway Commission and the Prison System
  • Dr. Heribert Von Feilitzsch (UNC – Greensboro) – The FBI and the IWW

Panel 17 – Reframing Black Women’s Narratives

Gilchrist 303 

– Dr. Baiyina Muhammad, Chair (NC Central University)

  • Morgan White – Into the Crib of Negroism: Black Women Cultural Workers in the Discipline of Folklore
  • Jacqueline Cherry – From Mammy to the Contemporary Black Woman Educator: Linkages between the Devaluation of Black Female Labor in the 19th and 20th Centuries
  • Taylor Stewart – Questioning Political Legitimacy: Mainstream Media Coverage of Black Female Political Campaigns, 2016-2024the 
  • Zoe Rollins – Decolonizing Reproductive Medicine: Reframing Autonomous Healthcare Practices in Black Women’s Narratives, 1960-1990

Panel 18 – Pop Culture

Gilchrist 107

Eric Walls, Chair (Pitt Community College)

  • Caroline Catterton (Duke University) – DC Comics’ Robin as the Barometer of American Cultural Anxiety
  • Azariah Journey (UNC – Greensboro) – Warped Perspective: A Critical Examination of American Exceptionalism, Media Propaganda, and Acceptance of American Military Actions in Star Trek
  • Dr. Patrick Kent (Martin Community College) – How Ancient Aliens Kind of Maybe (But Not Really) Built the Pyramids
  • Dr. Michael Kennedy (High Point University) – Organization and Financing of the Federal Baseball League

Session 7 – 12:00 – 1:30

Panel 19 – Maritime

Gilchrist 302

Dr. Eric Oakley, Chair (East Carolina University)

  • Emily Ann Farmer (East Carolina University) – Steered in the Wrong Direction: Revisiting Identity of La Rosa de Bilbao
  • Cullen Wiggins (NC State University) – Eastern Conventions: How Did One Convention in 1911 Make a Lasting Impact on North Carolina’s Fisheries?

Panel 20 – Civil War, Reconstruction, and Remembrance

Dr. Boyd Harris, Chair (College of the Albemarle)

Gilchrist 107

  • Ashley Low (UNC – Greensboro) – Acculturation Over the Airwaves: Confederate Myths, Southern Jews, and the Politics of Memory
  • Dr. Chandra Waller (Wingate University) – Breaking the Silence: Rape, Race, and Sexual Violence in Civil War America
  • Robert Skelton (UNC – Greensboro) – Purging Voter Rolls: How Conniving Voter Registrars Stole Black Voting Rights in Reconstruction Era Florida
  • Michael Ross (East Carolina University) – From Savannah to Bennet Place: Continuity and Change in Sherman’s Campaigns, 1864-65

Panel 21 – Integration, Black Identity, and Activism

Dr. John Brooks, Chair (UNC – Fayetteville)

Gilchrist 303

  • Charles Anderson (Fayetteville State University) – The 555th Parachute Infantry Battalion and Their Role in the Integration of the U.S. Army
  • Kaitlan Farrior (NC Central University) – Rethinking Black Masculinity: Survival, Vulnerability, and the Reclamation of Humanity
  • Sare McClellan (Elizabeth City State University) – Don’t Get Mad, Get Smart: Pauli Murray’s Evolving Relationship Between Activism and the South, 1938-1944

Closing Ceremony – 1:45 – 2:00