Hettie V. Williams, Ph.D., associate professor of African American History in the Department of History and Anthropology, was recently interviewed on the podcast, “Beyond the Brown & Gold” hosted by Rowan University Radio. The series highlights the lives and memories of Glassboro State College and Rowan University alumni.
In the interview, Williams details her journey from Glassboro State College to a tenured position at Monmouth University. She shares memories of influential mentors, her research on African American history, and how programs like EOF/MAP and AmeriCorps shaped her path. Williams’ conversation with hosts Jessica Kanady and Rob Lightfoot also covers her books, including “The Georgia of the North: Black Women and the Civil Rights Movement in New Jersey,” her podcasts, her popular course on the history of love and marriage, and how she approaches teaching today amid student anxiety and new tools like AI.
Williams is a historian of 20th century American history, former director of the William Monroe Trotter Institute for the Study of Black Culture at UMass Boston, and serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Women’s History. She is the recipient of the Eugene Simko Faculty Leadership Award, the PGIS Award in Social Justice, co-founder of the Monmouth University Interdisciplinary Conference on Race, founder of the Works in Progress Seminar series, and past president of the African American Intellectual History Society.