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Tameka Bradley Hobbs

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Tameka Bradley Hobbs
Dr.
Occupation(s)Library Regional Manager, African American Research Library and Cultural Center, Broward County Library.
Academic background
Alma materFlorida State University
Florida A&M University
Academic work
DisciplineHistorian
Notable worksDemocracy Abroad, Lynching At Home: Racial Violence In Florida

Tameka Bradley Hobbs is a historian, educator, author, and activist. She currently serves as the Library Regional Manager of Broward County Library's African American Research Library and Cultural Center in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.[1] She previously served as associate provost of Florida Memorial University and the founding director of the FMU Social Justice Institute think tank and research center. She is the author of the 2015 history book Democracy Abroad, Lynching at Home: Racial Violence in Florida.[2]

Early life and education

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Hobbs was raised in Live Oak, Florida.[3][4] While an undergraduate at Florida A&M University, Hobbs was inspired by an African American history course to shift the focus of her studies from business to history,[2] and graduated with a B.A. in history.[5] She became interested in becoming an oral historian after speaking with her grandfather about his experience living in Live Oak, and his recollections of the lynching of Willie James Howard in Live Oak,[3][6] and then focused her research while a graduate student at Florida State University on the history of racial violence in Florida.[7]

Hobbs completed her master's degree and PhD at Florida State University.[5] Her 2000 master's thesis was titled "Lynched Twice: The Murder of A.C. Williams", and the title of her 2004 dissertation is "Hitler is Here: Lynching in Florida during the Era of World War II."[6][8]

Career

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Hobbs' experience as an educator includes teaching at Florida A&M University, Virginia State University, and John Tyler Community College.[5] She has worked as a historian and coordinator for The Valentine Richmond History Center Richmond History Gallery Project and was the Program and Education Manager for the Library of Virginia from 2007 through 2011.[5] Hobbs began teaching at Florida Memorial University (FMU) in 2011.[2] While at FMU, she worked with FMU alumna Sybrina Fulton, the mother of Trayvon Martin, to create the Trayvon Martin Foundation in the campus library in 2014.[2]

Hobbs has written on a variety of subjects, including culture[9] and history. In 2015, Hobbs published Democracy Abroad, Lynching At Home: Racial Violence In Florida, which won a Bronze Florida Book Award[10][7] and includes oral histories of family members and descendants of lynching victims.[11][12] In 2021, Hobbs described oral history as a way to "wrest control of a community's narrative from white-controlled institutions."[13]

In 2020, as associate provost at Florida Memorial University, Hobbs became the founding director of the FMU Social Justice Institute, a think tank and research center focused on systemic racism in Florida.[2][14] When the US Congress considered making lynching a federal crime in 2020, Hobbs spoke with The New York Times about people who lack of awareness of the historical magnitude of violence motivated by racism in the United States, and stated, "I think if they understood that, perhaps they would understand the Black Lives Matter movement as an extension of centuries, really, of advocacy on the part of African-Americans."[15]

In 2022, Hobbs served as the inaugural executive director of the A. Philip Randolph Institute for Law, Race, Social Justice, and Economic Policy at Edward Waters University.[16]

Works

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  • Hobbs, Tameka Bradley; Guzmán, William (2000). Landmarks and Legacies: A Guide to Tallahassee's African American Heritage, 1865-1968. John G. Riley Center/Museum. ISBN 9780996785235.
  • Fortune, T. Thomas; Weinfeld, Daniel R.; Herd-Clark, Dawn J.; Hobbs, Tameka Bradley (2014). After War Times: An African American Childhood in Reconstruction-Era Florida. Tuscaloosa: The University of Alabama Press. ISBN 9780817387679.[17]
  • Hobbs, Tameka Bradley (2015). Democracy Abroad, Lynching at Home: Racial Violence in Florida. Gainesville: University Press of Florida. ISBN 9780813055466.
  • Hobbs, Tameka Bradley (2013). Junebug and the Gumbo Garden. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform. ISBN 1-4912-2484-3
  • Hobbs, Tameka Bradley and Austin, Jason (2016). Soar. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform. ISBN 1-5229-7416-4

Honors and awards

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References

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  1. ^ Libraries, Broward County. "Dr. Tameka Bradley Hobbs Selected as New Manager of African American Research Library and Cultural Center". www.prnewswire.com (Press release). Retrieved 2023-09-03.
  2. ^ a b c d e Benowitz, Shayne (October 22, 2020). "These rising local power players are advancing the community through activism, education, and more". Miami Herald. Archived from the original on 7 April 2021. Retrieved 15 September 2021.
  3. ^ a b Davidson-Hiers, CD (April 8, 2017). "Author of book on lynching talks history at Word of South". Tallahassee Democrat. Archived from the original on 15 September 2021. Retrieved 15 September 2021.
  4. ^ "Documentary reopens old wounds from Jim Crow-era killing". CBS News. Associated Press. January 1, 2015. Archived from the original on 16 September 2021. Retrieved 16 September 2021.
  5. ^ a b c d "Dr. Tameka Bradley-Hobbs". NSU Florida. Nova Southeastern University. Archived from the original on 17 September 2021. Retrieved 17 September 2021.
  6. ^ a b Hassanein, Nada (June 13, 2018). "'Painful history': Remembering Leon County's lynching victims". Tallahassee Democrat. Archived from the original on 15 September 2021. Retrieved 15 September 2021.
  7. ^ a b Hollinger, Michelle (March 10, 2016). "Hobbs wins bronze medal for book on lynching". South Florida Times. Archived from the original on 16 September 2021. Retrieved 16 September 2021.
  8. ^ Vandiver, Margaret (2005). Lethal Punishment: Lynchings and Legal Executions in the South. Rutgers University Press. p. 257. ISBN 9780813541068.
  9. ^ Holmes, Anna (May 14, 2015). "The Underground Art of the Insult". The New York Times Magazine. Archived from the original on 16 September 2021. Retrieved 16 September 2021.
  10. ^ "Three Tallahassee writers win Florida Book Awards". Tallahassee Democrat. March 5, 2016. Archived from the original on 15 September 2021. Retrieved 15 September 2021.
  11. ^ Mari N. Crabtree (November 3, 2016). "Review of Democracy Abroad, Lynching at Home: Racial Violence in Florida by Tameka Bradley Hobbs". Journal of Southern History. 82 (4): 950–951. doi:10.1353/soh.2016.0286. S2CID 159674568. Archived from the original on April 4, 2019. Retrieved September 16, 2021. With so much of the literature on lynching focused on white southerners, her interviews with African American survivors provide a poignant and, at times, gut-wrenching glimpse into the intergenerational trauma of lynching.
  12. ^ Michael J. Pfeifer (October 4, 2016). "Review of Tameka Bradley Hobbs. Democracy Abroad, Lynching at Home: Racial Violence in Florida". The American Historical Review. 121 (4). American Historical Association: 1309–1310. doi:10.1093/ahr/121.4.1309. Archived from the original on September 17, 2021. Retrieved September 16, 2021. Throughout her narrative and especially in a powerful epilogue, Hobbs provides a highly valuable analysis of the effects of the four lynchings on the families of the lynching victims as well as on local black communities. For the families and descendants of lynching victims, migration and broken family relationships often ensued, as did painful silences; for the larger African American community in localities, oral histories reconstructed events in instrumentalist ways that stressed the dangerously unjust ways of white supremacy.
  13. ^ Taylor, David (June 11, 2021). "Capturing the Stories of America in a Crisis". Davidson Journal Magazine. Davidson College. Archived from the original on 16 September 2021. Retrieved 16 September 2021.
  14. ^ "FMU to launch the South Florida Social Justice Common Read". South Florida Times. November 12, 2020. Archived from the original on 15 September 2021. Retrieved 15 September 2021.
  15. ^ Fortin, Jacey (February 28, 2020). "Congress Moves to Make Lynching a Federal Crime After 120 Years of Failure". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 11 September 2021. Retrieved 16 September 2021.
  16. ^ "Dr. Tameka Bradley Hobbs Appointed Inaugural Executive Director of the A. Philip Randolph Institute for Law, Race, Social Justice, and Economic Policy". Edward Waters University. March 25, 2022. Retrieved 9 June 2022.
  17. ^ Hoffman, Michael (June 7, 2015). "Book review: 'After War Times: An African American Childhood in Reconstruction-era Florida' by T. Thomas Fortune". The Florida Times-Union. Archived from the original on 16 September 2021. Retrieved 16 September 2021.
  18. ^ "Congratulations to our 2015 Florida Book Awards Winners!". The Florida Book Awards. Archived from the original on 16 June 2021. Retrieved 15 September 2021.
  19. ^ "End Notes: Florida Historical Society News". The Florida Historical Quarterly. 94 (4). Florida Historical Society: 698. Spring 2016. JSTOR 24769245. Archived from the original on 15 September 2021. Retrieved 15 September 2021.
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