Credit: Thamara Jean

I envision a liberated world. A world void of anti-blackness, racism, xenophobia, transphobia, homophobia, prison cells and continued imperialistic violence. A place of community, equity and collaboration. Simply, I want to help make our world more free. This goal motivates my historical work. The role of the historian in radical liberation is vital. History must be accessible and provide the necessary context to our current moment. Grounded in these principles of justice, liberation and ultimately joy I work towards a better tomorrow.

Mimi is a historian, writer, and poet invested in unearthing the lived experiences of African American women. She is a fourth-year Ph.D. Candidate in History with graduate certificates in African American Studies and Gender & Sexuality Studies. Camille graduated magna cum laude from Washington University in St. Louis in 2018 with a B.A. in History and Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. After graduation, she moved across the Atlantic, studying at the University of Oxford as a 2018 Rhodes Scholar. There, she received her MPhil in US History with distinction.

At Princeton, she is writing her dissertation on Black women’s embodied experience of pleasure in the 19th century. She contributed as a researcher to the Toni Morrison “Sites of Memory” exhibition at the Princeton University Library. Camille’s writing has appeared in the Huffington Post, USA Today, and The Chicago Review of Books. Mimi has previously worked as an intern in the Office of the President at the Mellon Foundation, as Program Director for the African American Heritage House at Chautauqua Institution, and as a GradFutures Social Impact Fellow at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History.

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