A native of Freeport, Bahamas, Crystal A. deGregory, Ph.D. is a proud 2003 graduate of the historic Fisk University. She received her master's degree in 2005 from Vanderbilt University and was subsequently awarded a doctoral degree in 2011 for her dissertation entitled: "Raising a Nonviolent Army: Four Nashville Black Colleges and the Century-Long Struggle for Civil Rights, 1830s-1930s." She believes deeply in the unique mission of Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) and is the founder and executive editor of  HBCUSTORY, Inc., an nonprofit advocacy initiative preserving, presenting and promoting inspiring stories of the HBCU, past and present, for our future. Presented in partnership with the Nashville Public Library and the Nashville Public Library Foundation, she convened the inaugural HBCUSTORY Symposium on April 27, 2013, which featured the original research of fifteen scholars from across the nation as well as a keynote address by Michael J. Sorrell, Esq., president of Paul Quinn College in Dallas.

 

Crystal also serves on the faculty of Tennessee State University’s department of history, political science, geography and Africana studies. Her work has been published in numerous books and journals including the Encyclopedia of African American Popular Culture (2011) and Freedom Facts and Firsts: 400 Years of the African American Civil Rights Experience(2009). She has forthcoming work in A Single Garment of Destiny: Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Globalization of an Ethical Ideal and will serve as editor for Emancipation and the Fight for Freedom, the sixth volume in the 12-part series Tennessee in the Civil War: The Best of the Tennessee Historical Quarterly.

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