Tammy L. Brown is a writer, educator, artist, and dreamer…
She earned her B.A. in international history, magna cum laude, from Harvard University and her Ph.D. in American history and African diaspora studies from Princeton University. As associate professor of history at Howard University, Tammy’s teaching, writing, and service to her community are connected through her interest in art, technology, and biography as a methodological approach.
Born and raised in Cincinnati, OH, Tammy comes from a family of educators, artists, and entrepreneurs who value life-long learning, spirituality, and public engagement. Her mother is a teacher who writes creative non-fiction and her father is a reverend and self-taught carpenter. Tammy says, “Years of watching my father’s work pushed me to think of what I could create with my own hands.” She builds her scholarly and creative work upon this foundation.
Dr. Brown’s research, writing, and art range from historical studies to abstract paintings and multimedia poetry. In Tammy’s first book, City of Islands: Caribbean Intellectuals in New York (2015), Dr. Brown uses the life stories of Caribbean intellectuals as “windows” into the dynamic history of immigration to New York and the long battle for racial equality in modern America. Tammy argues that biography, historical context, and civic engagement provide a framework for understanding how Caribbean intellectuals leveraged their African-diasporic identities to both challenge racism and push for the reform of American democracy. Tammy is in the research and writing phase of a second book project– a biography of Jimi Hendrix centering on the spiritual dimensions of his music.
Tammy's research on race, feminism, art, and politics has been featured in various media outlets including TEDx, the American Civil Liberty Union's blog, NPR, and Vox.com. Dr. Brown’s selected awards include the Heanon Wilkins Faculty Fellowship and the Lavatus Powell Outstanding Faculty Diversity Award at Miami University, and a Sustaining the Humanities through the American Rescue Plan (SHARP) grant from the National Endowment of the Humanities.