2026 Program

North Carolina Association of Historians Annual Meeting
Elizabeth City, NC
March 27-28, 2026

Friday, March 27th

Session 1: 8:30 – 10:00

Panel 1: NC Misc.

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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 

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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

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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 

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– 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 

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– 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) 

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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

  • Paige Hendrickson (ECSU)
  • Dr. Latif A. Tarik (ECSU)
  • Dr. JoCora 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

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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)

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  • 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)

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  • 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

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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

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– 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

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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

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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)

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  • 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 (Fayetteville State University)

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  • 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