Gill also offered her appreciation to the Cochrans for having the
insight and courage to create a program that recognizes outstanding UD
faculty members whose scholarship and service reflect excellence,
creativity and a commitment to inclusiveness, both on campus and beyond.
Those of us who labor to make this campus and, indeed, the larger
academic profession a more inclusive and welcoming place often dont see
our efforts valued in such a public and visible way, she said. I am
beyond honored to be the first recipient of this prestigious award and
am forever grateful for this investment in me as a scholar and a
teacher.
Gill joined the UD faculty in January 2013 as associate professor of
Africana studies, with a second appointment in history. Her research and
teaching interests include African American history, womens history,
the history of black entrepreneurship, fashion and beauty studies, and
travel and migration throughout the African Diaspora.
During her lecture, Gill, author of Beauty Shop Politics: African American Womens Activism in the Beauty Industry,
described some of the research she began in graduate school in an
attempt to understand the historical use of the black beauty shop as
one of the most importantalbeit uniqueinstitutions within African
American communities.
Black beauticians were keenly aware of the economic autonomy their
profession afforded them, the unique institutional space they
controlled and the access they had to black women within their
communities, she said. They were instrumental in developing a
political infrastructure for African American womens involvement in the
Civil Rights movement that was, for the most part, under black female
control and under the radar from whites unsympathetic to the cause of
racial justice.
In other words, she said, the power of the beauty shop as a
political site and beauticians as political activists was precisely
because they were dismissed as frivolous in a black woman-centered
leisure space.
Gill is currently working on a book manuscript chronicling the
history of black international leisure travel since World War I. During
her lecture, she talked about her research for that book, which includes
exploration of the creative and subversive political strategizing of
black leisure travelers.
While books have engaged the role of black migration in the making
of African American culture and history, and there has been increased
attention on the perils of navigating American racism while traveling
domestically, Gill said, international travel is an under-explored,
though vital, lens through which to examine African American struggles
for dignity, freedom and civil rights.
She said that by reflecting on the historical and political legacy of
these unlikely activists, we can all be inspired to look for
possibilities for personal and community empowerment in the
non-traditional spaces all around us.
In that vein, Gill concluded her lecture by challenging the UD
community to give serious thought to diversity and inclusion on campus.
The occasion of the launch of the Cochran Scholars gives all of us
in the UD community a chance to reflect and ask ourselves some hard
questions, she said. What are the lived experiences of students and
faculty of color at UD? Do we feel connected to the campus? Is UD a
space of joy or oppression? Unless we are willing to listen to the
answers to these hard questions, no progress on these issues will ever
be made.
Article by Kate Bailey
