Honoring the Legacy of Dr. Niara Sudarkasa (1938-2019)
ARLCC is proud to announce the institution of an annual lecture in honor of the legacy of cultural anthropologist, Africanist, university president, and Fort Lauderdale native, Dr. Niara Sudarkasa.
Broward County’s African American Research Library and Cultural Center (AARLCC) is proud to announce the institution of an annual lecture in honor of the life and legacy of cultural anthropologist, Africanist, university president, and Fort Lauderdale native, Dr. Niara Sudarkasa (1938-2019).
Niara Sudarkasa, née Gloria Albertha Marshall, was born on August 14, 1938, in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. She graduated from Dillard High School at the age of 14. Dr. Sudarkasa, a gifted student, was accepted to Fisk University on a Ford Foundation scholarship at the age of 15. She transferred to Oberlin College and earned her bachelor’s degree in 1957.
The first African American woman to teach at Columbia University, she earned her master’s degree in anthropology and completed her Ph.D. while teaching at the university. Shortly after Dr. Sudarkasa earned her doctorate in anthropology in 1964, she became the first African American woman to be appointed as assistant professor of anthropology at New York University. She maintained that distinction at the University of Michigan when she became the first African American to be appointed to the Department of Anthropology in 1969. In 1986, she was appointed as the first African American female president of Lincoln University, a historically Black University located in Pennsylvania. Dr. Sudarkasa is the author of Where Women Work: A Study of Yoruba Women in the Marketplace and in the Home (1988), The Strength of Our Mothers: African & African American Women & Families: Essays and Speeches (1997), and Education is Still the Key: Selected Speeches & Essays (1998).
In 2002, Dr. Sudarkasa served as Distinguished Scholar-in-Residence at AARLCC. In 2006, she donated her collection to the African American Research Library and Cultural Center. Her collection includes her library and is the second largest manuscript collection in AARLCC’s archive.
Dr. Sudarkasa married John L. Clark and had a son, Michael Sudarkasa. She was a member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. She died on May 31, 2019, at the age of 80, in Fort Lauderdale.
Johnnetta Betsch Cole is a noted anthropologist, educator, author, speaker and consultant on inclusion, diversity, equity and accessibility in educational institutions, museums, corporations, and other workplaces. After receiving a Ph.D. in anthropology, Dr. Cole held teaching positions in anthropology, women’s studies, and African American studies at several colleges and universities. She was recently appointed a Kettering Foundation Senior fellow. Dr. Cole served as President of both historically Black colleges for women in the United States, Spelman College and Bennett College, a distinction she alone holds. She also served as the Director of the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art, as a Principal Consultant at Cook Ross, and as a Senior Consulting Fellow at the Mellon Foundation.
