Historian. Professor. Author. Activist Follow me on Twitter: @lesliemalex
Why I Became A Historian
As a young child, I had a passionate love for books, history, and social justice, but I lost my interest in history during junior high and high school. The stories that my disinterested teachers told were not about people who looked like me, and they did not tell the truth about the history of this country and people who built it....
So it was not until my sophomore year at Stanford, when I took my first African American Studies class from Dr. Sylvia Wynter that my passion for history was reborn. I can still remember sitting in her classroom and getting chills as she described the horrors of the Trans-Atlantic Trade in Humans. I kept thinking, "why hasn't anyone told me this before?" And I pledged that I would be part of the movement to spread the truth....
Thanks to Dr. Clayborne Carson and Dr. Margaret Washington, who introduced me to to the practice of historical research, I embarked on a journey that has led me to become a professor of African American and African Diaspora history.
