Alexandria Russell, Ph.D.

Dr. Alexandria Russell is the Executive Director of the Boston Women’s Heritage Trail and a non-resident W.E.B. Du Bois Research Institute Fellow at Harvard University’s Hutchins Center for African & African American Research. She earned Bachelor’s degrees in Political Science and Secondary Education from College of Charleston and her Ph.D. in History from University of South Carolina. Her book, Black Women Legacies: Public History Sites Seen & Unseen (University of Illinois Press), examines the evolution of African American women’s memorialization in the United States from the late nineteenth century to the present. She founded Black Women Legacies, a nonprofit organization that supports digitally mapping historic and contemporary memorials of Black women across the globe on a free website. As a historian, memorializer, and public history practitioner, Dr. Alexandria Russell is committed to ethical research practices that recover obscure histories and create accessible pathways for bringing diverse histories to people of all backgrounds.