Ph.D.
Amy Tillerson-Brown
Dr. Tillerson-Brown is a professor of history and history department chair at Mary Baldwin University, Staunton, Virginia. She also directs the African American Studies and Public History programs while advising Phi Alpha Theta, the national history honor society and serving as a member of MBU’s Coalition for Racial & Social Justice. Tillerson-Brown is completing her book manuscript, “Black Women and the Freedom Struggle in Prince Edward County, Virginia, 1880-1965.” This project analyses the activism of Black women in Prince Edward County before and during the public school crisis that began with the 1951 R. R. Moton High School student strike in protest of inadequate educational facilities and ended with the reopening of public schools that closed from 1959-1964 to resist the desegregation mandate of the Brown decision.
In 2013, Tillerson-Brown produced a documentary, Voices from Port Republic Road. Focusing on the experiences of alumni from the Rosenwald School, this project documents the interconnectedness of school, church, and business in this mid-twentieth century rural Black community along with the challenges of public school segregation and integration.
Before accepting her position at Mary Baldwin, she was director of African American Heritage Program at the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities at UVA, and worked as a public school teacher and counselor in Roanoke City Public Schools and Baltimore City Public Schools.