Meet our Alumni: DeAsia Noble, ’23
DeAsia Noble graduated from North Carolina State with her Master’s in Public History in 2023. She is a Park Ranger at the Historic Homes in Washington, D.C., specifically at the African American sites. She works with school groups, various governmental agencies, special events, the Network to Freedom and the Civil Rights Network Trail.
How do you feel your degree prepared you for your current job?
I feel as though the program helped me tremendously! My research skills have helped me uncover important histories dealing with the National Park Service and their African American sites in Washington, D.C. I recently moved back to North Carolina but I am working for the National Park Service as a researcher on the 250th Anniversary of the Revolutionary War with the Network to Freedom and the Underground Railroad Center. This project will tell the histories of individuals who are freedom seekers or free people of color. I have so far worked on the histories of individuals in North Carolina, Virginia, the Ohio Valley, and Canada. We finished a contract with the National Endowment for the Humanities for lesson plans on freedom seeking and presented them.
What does a typical day as a Park Ranger look like?
As a Park Ranger my everyday tasks were to research different histories pertaining to the site, answering research requests, giving tours to visitors, stakeholders, and sometimes politicians. I have assisted with recruitment at the White House’s HBCU Initiative Career Fair. I have also assisted with planning events and social media posts for the 2024 year.
Tell me about some specific projects you’ve worked on as Park Ranger.
Before I moved back, I uncovered the history of the first caretakers to the Frederick Douglass National Historic Site, who were connected to the National Negro Business League and Booker T. Washington while also working for the Secretary of War on Negro Affairs during World War I. This history was never heard of, neither was it included in the cultural resource study. For the Mary McLeod Bethune Site, I researched other prominent members of the National Council of Negro Women such as Sadie T. Alexander, Dorothy Porter Wesley, Charlotte Hawkins Brown, Rep. Helen G. Douglass, and Former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. This information was to update the website content and to help with future exhibits of the home and programming for Women’s History Month. I have also been a part of the birthday celebration for Carter G. Woodson, with guest speaker Nikole Hannah-Jones and hosted the National Oratorical Contest.
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