Pero Gaglo Dagbovie is a University Distinguished Professor of History and Associate Dean in the Graduate School. His research and teaching interests comprise a range of time periods, themes, and topical specialties, including black intellectual history, the history of the black historical enterprise, black women’s history, black life during “the nadir,” the civil rights-Black Power movement, African American Studies, hip hop culture, and contemporary black history.
His books include Black History: “Old School” Black Historians and the Hip Hop Generation (Bedford Publishers, Inc., 2006), The Early Black History Movement, Carter G. Woodson, and Lorenzo Johnston Greene (University of Illinois Press, 2007), African American History Reconsidered (University of Illinois Press, 2010), Carter G. Woodson in Washington, D.C.: The Father of Black History (The History Press, 2014), What is African American History? (Polity Press: Cambridge, UK, 2015), and Reclaiming the Black Past: The Use and Misuse of African American History in the Twenty-First Century (Verso Books, 2018). He is the next Editor of The Journal of African American History.
He has been involved in public history and African American history educational programs. He served as a scholar consultant for the permanent exhibit, “And Still We Rise: Our Journey through African American History and Culture,” at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History in Detroit, Michigan. Under the auspices of the U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service, National Capital Region, and the Organization of American Historians, from 2008 until 2010, he served as the principal investigator for the Carter G. Woodson Home, NHS and completed the historic resource study for the Woodson Home. He has participated in and lead workshops for secondary school teachers funded by the U.S. Department of Education and the National Endowment for the Humanities. Dr. Dagbovie has also lectured abroad and throughout the nation and he actively mentors graduate students in the Department of History and the African American and African Studies Ph.D. Program. He welcomes inquiries from students interested in specializing in African American history and Comparative Black History.