Dr. Shennette Garrett-Scott

Association of Black Women Historians

National Director of the Association of Black Women Historians

Shennette Garrett-Scott is committed to recovering and telling little-known stories about African American women’s enterprise, labor, and activism. Considered one of the foremost experts of Black business history and Juneteenth, Dr. Garrett-Scott’s work focuses on African Americans’ quest for economic and social justice. She is Associate Professor of History and Africana Studies and Gibbons Professor in the Tulane School of Liberal Arts.

Her first book Banking on Freedom: Black Women in U.S. Finance Before the New Deal (Columbia University Press, 2019) was a finalist for the Hagley Museum & Library and Business History Conference’s Hagley Prize for best book in business history, and it won the Southern Historical Association’s award for best book in southern economic history. It also won best book in African American women’s history prizes from both the Association of Black Women Historians and the Organization of American Historians.

Her work has appeared in top U.S. and international academic journals as well as popular magazines, including Time, Financial History, and Southern Cultures magazines. Her second book, Black Enterprise: How Black Capitalism Made America, is forthcoming from W.W. Norton.

She currently serves as the Senior Associate Editor of the journal LABOR: Studies in Working-Class History and as National Director of the Association of Black Women Historians, the oldest professional organization dedicated to the study of Black women’s history. She is featured in two PBS documentaries: Boss: The Black Experience in Business and Making Black America, hosted by Dr. Henry Louis Gates. Follow her online at sgarrettscott.com and on Twitter at @EbonRebel [pronounced eh-BUN Reh-BULL].