Call for Papers
The American Milestone: Negro History Week/Black History Month Centennial Committee invites scholars from a range of disciplines to submit proposals for its March 5-7, 2026, Symposium to be held at Marshall University, in Huntington, West Virginia. The Symposium’s Plenary Session will be held at West Virginia State University, an HBCU, Land-grant university founded in 1891, located 40 minutes from Marshall’s main campus. The symposium includes an excursion to the historic West Virginia State University. Transportation will be provided for participants and registered conference attendees between the two campuses.
Faculty, undergraduates, graduate students, and independent scholars, as well as K-12 teachers, are welcome and encouraged to submit proposals that address U.S. and global themes in Black history and culture from a broad variety of traditional and non-traditional disciplinary, methodological, and thematic perspectives.
The symposium organizers would especially welcome paper and full-session proposals dealing with:
- Carter G. Woodson’s historical significance
- Black political mobilizations and their theoretical frameworks
- Black agency within the U.S. labor movement
- Forms of structural racism as a factor in Black socioeconomic mobility
- Changes and continuities in Black art and literature
- How dominant and subaltern sex and gender constructs have influenced Black identities
- Intersections between Black history and Appalachian history
- Black educational movements within and beyond U.S. HBCUs
Conference proceedings will be published by Marshall University’s Carter G. Woodson Lyceum and the Drinko Academy subsequent to the symposium.
All proposals must be submitted by June 1, 2025, via the form at the bottom of this page.
Both full-session and individual paper proposals will be considered.
- Full-session proposals should include a title and brief description of the theme(s), a one-page abstract of each paper, a CV for each participant, and an indication of technology requirements, if any.
- Individual paper proposals should include a one-page abstract, a CV, and an indication of technology requirements, if any.
Please direct questions to Dr. Montserrat Miller at millerm@marshall.edu or Professor Burnis R. Morris at morrisb@marshall.edu
