Dr. Karsonya 鈥淜aye鈥� Wise Whitehead 鈥� Karson Institute Biography
Dr. Karsonya 鈥淜aye鈥� Wise Whitehead is a historian of Black life in America whose work
explores how Black history is remembered, taught, and carried into the present. She
is the founding executive director of the Karson Institute for Race, Peace & Social
Justice and a professor of Communication and African and African American Studies
at 蓝莓视频.
Through the Karson Institute, Whitehead brings scholarship into conversation with
public history, education, storytelling, and community life. Her work is grounded
in the belief that history must live beyond the archive鈥攃reating opportunities for
people to engage the past, examine the present, and consider how memory and storytelling
shape the communities we build.
An award-winning author of five books, Whitehead鈥檚 scholarship includes Notes from
a Colored Girl: The Civil War Pocket Diaries of Emilie Frances Davis, which received
the Darlene Clark Hine Book Award from the Organization of American Historians and
the Letitia Woods Brown Book Award from the Association of Black Women Historians.
Her most recent book, my mother鈥檚 tomorrow: dispatches through the lens of Baltimore鈥檚
Black Butterfly, examines Black life, place, memory, family, and community in Baltimore.
Dr. Whitehead also serves as the 30th president of the Association for the Study of
African American Life and History (ASALH), founded by Dr. Carter G. Woodson in 1915
and the nation鈥檚 oldest organization dedicated to the study and promotion of Black
history.
She hosts the award-winning radio show Today With Dr. Kaye on WEAA 88.9 FM, where
she brings historical perspective to conversations about some of the stories that
matter in American life. Her work in radio and journalism has earned two Regional
Edward R. Murrow Awards, eleven Chesapeake Associated Press Broadcasters Association
Awards, and the Vernon Jarrett Medal for Journalistic Excellence.
Before entering academia, Whitehead worked as a documentary filmmaker and television
producer, including as a senior producer for MTV, and received three New York Emmy
nominations. She holds a Ph.D. in Language, Literacy, and Culture from the University
of Maryland, Baltimore County; an M.A. in International Peace Studies from the University
of Notre Dame; and a B.A. in history from Lincoln University, Pennsylvania. She is
a member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Incorporated.
Whitehead has delivered more than 950 keynote addresses nationally and internationally.
Across her scholarship, public history, media work, and institutional leadership,
she continues to explore how Black history is carried forward and how the stories
we choose to remember shape American life.