Dr. Clarissa Myrick-Harris is Chair of the Humanities Division and Professor of Africana Studies at Morehouse College. She previously was Dean of Humanities and Social Sciences (the first woman academic dean at Morehouse), and later Associate Provost for Pedagogical and Curricular Initiatives for the institution.
She is the convener of the Committee to Commemorate the Atlanta Student Movement, which has developed the Atlanta Student Movement Initiative to share the stories and lessons of student activism of the 1960s with young activists fighting against social injustices of today. This initiative includes a series of intergenerational conversations launched in Fall 2020 as well as an outdoor exhibition and symposium planned for Fall 2021. Dr. Myrick-Harris also leads Morehouse’s partnership with the Points of Light Foundation for the Listen Learn Act to End Racism Initiative.
Dr. Myrick-Harris’ scholarship focuses on African American leadership and institution building with special emphasis on Black activism during the Civil Rights and Black Power movements. Her publications include Perspectives on Exemplary Transformational Leadership Among Presidents at Historically Black Colleges and Universities, (2014); “Call the Women: The Tradition of African American Female Activism in Georgia During the Civil Rights Movement,” in the book Southern Black Women in the Modern Civil Rights Movement, (2013); and “Behind the Scenes: Two Women of the Free Southern Theater,” a chapter in the groundbreaking volume Women of the Civil Rights Movement: Trailblazers & Torchbearers, 1941-1965 (1995). She recently completed a historical study for the National Park Service entitled How They Lived (2020), which focuses on the last home of civil rights icon Martin Luther King, Jr. and the childhood home of Maynard H. Jackson, Jr., the first black mayor of Atlanta, GA.