Dr. Nakia Parker
Board of Directors / Advisory Council
Nakia Parker is an Assistant Professor in the History Department at Michigan State University. Dr. Parker is a historian of nineteenth-century U.S. slavery, African American, and American Indian history.
She is currently working on her first book manuscript, Trails of Tears and Freedom: Black Life in Indian Slave Country, 1830-1866 which examines the lives of enslaved and self-liberated individuals of African and Afro-Native descent in Choctaw and Chickasaw communities in nineteenth-century Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma).
Dr. Parker’s research has received funding and awards from several institutions, including the Association of American University Women (AAUW), the Organization of American Historians (OAH), and the Western History Association.
Her work has been published in The Journal of African American History, the East Texas Historical Journal, and in the New York Times best-seller, 400 Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019. Her research has also been featured on several public history websites, including The History Channel, the podcast Teaching Hard History, and The University of Texas at Austin’s 15 Minute History.