Public History MA student, Katie Boatner, received a travel grant from the History Department which enabled her to travel to Atlanta and present her research at the 2025 Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH) conference.

The 2025 ASALH conference, held this year in Atlanta, celebrated African Americans and Labor. The theme was especially felt through the sessions, panels, and roundtables as researchers, artists, curators, and others explored building Black history through community organizing, the National Park Service, freedom schools, and other modes of activism. As a student, there were opportunities to learn and engage with the past, present, and future of labor and working-class history from all manner of unique contexts and through so many different voices. The pace and diversity of sessions provided a stimulating atmosphere for me, and I took as many notes on the questions that were asked as I did the presentations. I got to see some of my professors in different roles as panelists and chairs as well, and the experience at ASALH enriched the things I have learned so far in both my coursework and the opportunities the department offers for extracurricular public history education.

Speaking on a panel chaired by Dr. Nishani Frazier, “Remembering and Memorializing Black Labor: Public History as Preservation and Policy-Making,” with Public History MA student Liam McCandless and Public History PhD student John Goncalves, I experienced the conference as an immersive experience for professional academic development. This was my second time speaking on a panel, but my first time speaking with people I knew beforehand. The scholastic camaraderie that we had made this panel feel like a collaborative moment, even though our topics of research lay in distinct locations and time periods. The opportunity to explore my topic, which involved working-class consciousness among Philadelphia dockworkers from 1913-1927, in concert with my colleagues’ topics, helped me to better frame my historical question and keep my focus on what made this group of workers’ style of unionism unique. Presenting with those in my cohort also provided a level of peer review that we do not as frequently achieve in the classroom.

While presenting was one of the major highlights of the conference for me, I was equally fortunate to attend another NC State Public History PhD student, Tyanna West’s, panel. Her presentation Black Labor in Maritime North Carolina, was part of a panel “Black Histories and the Lower Cape Fear” and it was amazing to see how she constructed and delivered her work. I think the best part of attending the conference was showing up to learn with and from colleagues at different places in their academic careers and from professors about the different topics that their research is in. I saw some other academic heroes as well, activists and scholars across fields and generations. One of the plenaries celebrated the legacies of Black Studies through Dr. Joe Trotter’s scholarship, who has inspired my research into urban labor history and working-class consciousness. Attending ASALH was an opportunity to grow professionally in my own while celebrating and sharing experiences with my cohort and beyond.