QUINTARD TAYLOR, the Scott and Dorothy Bullitt Professor of American History at the University of Washington, is the eighth historian to hold the endowed chair and the second, after Richard Kirkendall, to be a resident scholar at the University. Taylor has occupied the chair since July 1, 1999.
Born in Brownsville, Tennessee, Taylor received his B.A. from St. Augustine's College in Raleigh, North Carolina, and his M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota. Taylor has nearly forty years of teaching experience in African American history and specifically the history of African Americans in the American West. He is the author of The Forging of A Black Community: Seattle’s Central District from 1870 through the Civil Rights Era (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1994) and In Search of the Racial Frontier: African Americans in the America West, 1528-1990 (New York: W.W. Norton, 1998). He and Shirley Ann Wilson Moore are the editors of the anthology, African American Women Confront the West, 1600-2000 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2003) and he is co-editor with Lawrence B. de Graaf, and Kevin Mulroy of Seeking El Dorado: African Americans in California (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2001). He is the editor of a two volume collection of primary documents titled From Timbuktu to Katrina: Readings in African American History (Boston: Thomson Wadsworth Press, 2008). His most recent work, America-I-Am Black Facts: The Story of a People Through Timelines, 1601-2000, was released in February, 2009 by Tavis Smiley Books.
Taylor is also the author of over fifty articles. His work on African American Western History, African American, African, Afro-Brazilian, and comparative ethnic history has appeared in the Western Historical Quarterly, Pacific Historical Review, Oregon Historical Quarterly, The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Journal of Negro History, Arizona and the West, Western Journal of Black Studies, Polish-American Studies, and the Journal of Ethnic Studies, among other journals. He is also editor of the Race and Culture in the American West Series for the University of Oklahoma Press which to date has produced three volumes: Gary Zellar’s African Creeks: Estelvste and the Creek Nation (2008); Kevin Mulroy, Seminole Maroons in Indian Territory: From Removal to Oklahoma Statehood, 1837-1907 (2008), and Robert Bauman’s From Watts to East L.A.: Race and the War on Poverty in Los Angeles (2008).
Since becoming the Bullitt Chair in 1999, Taylor has given over 100 public presentations on African American history. In 2004, he and associates created an online website resource center for African American history now called BlackPast.org (www.blackpast.org). The center which houses over 3,000 pages of information, has links to over 600 other websites, and features contributions by more than 400 scholars. It is now one of the largest reference centers of its type on the Internet. Since January 1, 2009 over 1.4 million people from more than 100 nations have visited BlackPast.org. In 2008 slightly over one million people visited the website.
In October, 2009 Taylor became President-Elect of the Western History Association (WHA) at its meeting in Denver. He will serve as President of the WHA, the fourth largest association of historians in the United States from 2010 to 2011 during its celebration of its 50th anniversary.
Taylor is currently serving on the Board of Trustees of the Idaho Black History Museum in Boise and the HistoryLink Interactive History Project in Seattle. He also serves on the Advisory Board of the multi-year traveling exhibition organized by Radio and Television Personality Tavis Smiley titled “America-I-Am: The African American Imprint on America.” Taylor is a former member of the Washington State Historical Society and the Governing Council of the American Historical Association and a founding trustee of the Northwest African American Museum (NAAM). He was also a founding board member of the Central District Forum for Arts and Ideas. Taylor has taught at universities in Washington, Oregon, California, and Nigeria over his 37 year career in higher education.
For additional information please see the Quintard Taylor websites,
http://faculty.washington.edu/qtaylor/
www.blackpast.org
