AUTHOR

The HISTORIAN IN HEELS ®

KARCHEIK SIMS-ALVARADo, ph.d.

Dr. Karcheik Sims-Alvarado has studied the history and culture of African Americans throughout the Black Atlantic World for nearly 20 years. Whether in the classroom, museum, or in the field, she has sought to document and teach the African-American odyssey through various mediums.

As the CEO of Preserve Black Atlanta, a non profit 501(c)(3) dedicated to identifying, recording, and preserving African-American history and culture, Dr. Sims-Alvarado has developed a model for utilizing historical and cultural assets as a catalyst for economic and community development. Clients include Ancestry.com, Hulu, Facebook, and the National Park Service.

Dr. Sims-Alvarado served as the Founding Director of the John Lewis Fellowship with the National Center for Civil and Human Rights. She is a leading authority on Atlanta’s first black millionaire Alonzo Herndon, the Back-to-Africa Movement during the Abolitionist Movement and Reconstruction Era, the life of W.E.B. Du Bois in Atlanta, and the Civil Rights Movement in Atlanta.

She has served as the civil rights historian and exhibition consultant of “A Right to Freedom: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr” with the Nobel Prize Museum in Stockholm, Sweden, the Historical Advisor for the immersive exhibition, The March, presented by TIME magazine, and Exhibition Designer for the Women, Soul of the Nation immersive exhibition with The King Center. With $1 million in support from the National Park Service, she is preserving the historic homes of George A. Towns and Grace Towns Hamilton in Atlanta, GA. She served as Chief Curator with the W.E.B. Du Bois Museum Foundation to preserve the residence of W.E.B. Du Bois and Shirley Graham DuBois in Accra, Ghana. She is partnering with Newton County Government to preserve the African burial ground of more than 150 enslaved person in Covington, Georgia. Also, she is the Chair of the Fulton County Reparations Task Force.

Dr. Sims-Alvarado is the author of Atlanta and the Civil Rights Movement, 1944-1968 and the curator of the world’s longest outdoor photography exhibition documenting the long civil rights movement. Her latest book, Georgia and the Power of the Vote is scheduled for release in February 2024. Currently, she serves as an assistant professor of Africana Studies at Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia.