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Tameka Bradley Hobbs Dr. | |
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| Occupation(s) | Library Regional Manager, African American Research Library and Cultural Center, Broward County Library. |
| Academic background | |
| Alma mater | Florida State University Florida A&M University |
| Academic work | |
| Discipline | Historian |
| Notable works | Democracy 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]
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]
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]
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.
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.
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