Luther Adams - Free Man of Color

• Harry Bridges Center for Labor Studies
• Center for the Study of Community and Society at UW Tacoma

Luther Adams – Free Man of Color is both a student and teacher of Black history and culture, my work brings the interdisciplinary study of urban, southern, labor and religious history together to understand Black culture and life. I mentor and graduate students, share my work and expertise publicly at conferences, schools, churches, theaters, prisons & libraries, and with local & national media. I am Associate Professor of Ethnic, Gender, and Labor Studies at the University of Washington in Tacoma.

I am grateful for the support provided by fellowships at:
• Walter Chapin Simpson Center for the Humanities
• New York Public Library
• Center for African American Urban Studies and the Economy at Carnegie Mellon University
• NEH Summer Institute on African American Civil Rights at Harvard University
• Woodford R. Porter, Sr. Scholarship

My research is on police brutality, African American migration and religion, urban history, and Black culture. My work began with Black history in Kentucky and expanded to encompass Black history and life broadly across space and time. I think, speak, and write about Black history and culture. I am author of Way Up North in Louisville: African American Migration in the Urban South, 1930-1970. I am writing NO JUSTICE NO PEACE, a history of African Americans’ struggles with and against police brutality.

• iTech Fellow, On-line teaching certification, UWT, Winter-Spring, 2021.
• Kentucky Historical Society research grant for Civil War Governors of Kentucky Digital Documentary Edition, 2016.
• Nominated, UWT Distinguished Teaching Award, 2016.
• Walter Chapin Simpson Center for the Humanities, Research Fellowship University of Washington, 2015-2016.
• New York Public Library Short-Term Fellowship, Fall, 2011.
• Nominated, UW Graduate School Marsha L. Landolt Distinguished Graduate Mentor Award, 2009.
• Center for African American Urban Studies and the Economy, African American Urban Studies Fellowship, Carnegie Mellon University, 2006-2007.
• Internationalizing the Curriculum, Office of Undergraduate Education, University of Washington, 2006.
• Institute for Teaching Excellence, University of Washington, 2004.
• NEH Summer Institute on African American Civil Rights, Harvard University, 2003.
• Fontaine Fellowship, University of Pennsylvania, 1994- 1999.
• Woodrow Wilson Program in Public Policy and International Affairs, Summer Program in Policy Skills, Princeton University, 1993.
• Woodford R. Porter, Sr. Scholarship, University of Louisville, 1990-1994.