Alma Jean Billingslea (born 1946) is an American scholar and teacher, and a veteran of the civil rights movement.

Alma Jean Billingslea
Billingslea in 2016
Born1946 (age 77–78)
Academic background
Alma mater
Academic work
DisciplineAfrican diaspora
InstitutionsSpelman College

Billingslea was born in Albany, Georgia, but grew up in Orange, New Jersey, where she was one of the first African American students to desegregate the Orange public school system. From 1967 to 1971, she worked as a field staff member for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), the organization founded by Martin Luther King, Jr. She is professor emerita and co-founder of the program in African Diaspora Studies at Spelman College in Atlanta, Georgia.[1] She received the A.B. degree from Rutgers University, the M.A. degree from Atlanta University, and the PhD from the University of Texas at Dallas.[2]

Billingslea is the author of Crossing Borders through Folklore: African American Women's Fiction and Art (University of Missouri Press, 1999).[3][4]

References

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  1. ^ Whitt, Margaret Earley (2006). Short Stories of the Civil Rights Movement: An Anthology. U of Georgia P. p. 156. ISBN 9780820327990.
  2. ^ "Alma Billingslea-Brown, Ph.D." Archived from the original on 2015-12-20. Retrieved January 13, 2021.
  3. ^ Sherman, Sarah Way (2000). "Crossing Borders through Folklore (review)". American Literature. 72 (3): 655–56. doi:10.1215/00029831-72-3-655. S2CID 161523048.
  4. ^ Sherrard, Cherene M. (1999). "Review: Conjuring the Folk Aesthetic". Novel: A Forum on Fiction. 33 (1): 150–52. doi:10.2307/1346039. JSTOR 1346039.
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