Dr. Kellie Carter Jackson

Knafel Assistant Professor of the Humanities, Department of Africana Studies, Wellesley College

Kellie Carter Jackson is the Knafel Assistant Professor of the Humanities in the Department of Africana Studies at Wellesley College. She was also the 2019-2020 Newhouse Faculty Fellow for the Center of the Humanities at Wellesley College. Carter Jackson's research focuses on slavery and the abolitionists, violence as a political discourse, historical film, and black women’s history. She earned her B.A at her beloved Howard University and her Ph.D from Columbia University working with the esteemed historian Eric Foner. Her book, Force & Freedom: Black Abolitionists and the Politics of Violence (University of Pennsylvania Press), examines the conditions that led some black abolitionists to believe slavery might only be abolished by violent force. In Force and Freedom, Carter Jackson provides the first historical analysis exclusively focused on the tactical use of violence among antebellum black activists. Force and Freedom is a finalist for the Frederick Douglass Book Prize, winner of the James H. Broussard Best First Book Prize given by SHEAR (Society for Historians of the Early American Republic) and a finalist for the Museum of African American History (MAAH) Stone Book Prize Award for 2019. The Washington Post listed Force and Freedom as one of 13 books to read on the history of Black America for those who really want to learn.