Marcia Walker-McWilliams joins board of Digital Public Library of America

The Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) has appointed Marcia Walker-McWilliams, Executive Director of the Black Metropolis Research Consortium (BMRC), to the DPLA board of directors. She and three colleagues, Joshua Frazier-Sparks, Joseph Lucia, and Kelvin Watson, joined the board on September 1 for a three-year term.

Walker-McWilliams provides strategic leadership for the BMRC, which has its home at the University of Chicago Library, and works to facilitate the discovery, preservation, and use of Black historical collections in Chicago. She received a Ph.D. in American History from the University of Chicago and an undergraduate degree in Social Policy and African American Studies from Northwestern University. Walker-McWilliams is the author of Reverend Addie Wyatt: Faith and the Fight for Labor, Gender, and Racial Equality (University of Illinois Press, 2016) and co-author of two upcoming projects: The Civil Rights Movement Reader (University of Massachusetts Press) with Traci Parker and Revisiting the Black Metropolis: New Histories of Black Chicago (University of Illinois Press) with Simon Balto and Erik Gellman. Prior to joining the BMRC, she taught courses in American history and African American Studies at Lone Star College, Prairie View A&M University, the University of Houston and Rice University, where she also served as an Associate Director in the Center for Civic Leadership.

“I am delighted to see Marcia’s outstanding contributions to our field recognized through this prestigious appointment,” said Brenda Johnson, Library Director and University Librarian at the University of Chicago Library. “I know that she will offer vital insights to the DPLA in her role as a board member.”

On October 21 at 1 pm ET, Walker-McWilliams will moderate the next DPLA Book Talk with Adam Harris, author of The State Will Provide: Why America’s Colleges Have Always Been Unequal–and How to Set Them Right. Register for this webinar here.