Ashley Howard earned a PhD in History from the University of Illinois. Her research interests include African Americans in the Midwest; the intersection between race, class, and gender; and the global history of racial violence. Her forthcoming book Midwest Unrest:  1960s Urban Rebellions and the Black Freedom Movement analyzes the 1960s urban uprisings in the Midwest, grounded in the way race, class, gender, and region played critical and overlapping roles in defining resistance to racialized oppression.  She is currently researching her second book project which investigates the relationship between anti-Black racial violence, memory, and public history.

 Dr. Howard's work has appeared in The Chronicle of Higher Education, BBC World News Hour, Al Jazeera, Financial Times, Washington Post and NPR. Her "Then the Burnings Began" article is the winner of the 2018 James L. Sellers Memorial Prize.