Dr. Arica L Coleman is an award-winning, nationally recognized American historian and independent scholar whose research focuses on comparative ethnic studies and racial formation and identity issues. Her additional research interests include indigeneity, immigration/migration, interracial relations, mixed-race identity, race and gender intersections, sexuality, the politics of race and science, and popular culture.
She received her doctorate in American Studies from the Union Institute and University in 2005. She completed a Post-Doctoral Fellowship in Scholarly Information Resources and Africana Studies at Johns Hopkins University during the 2006-2007 academic year. In 2008, she was a summer Mellon Fellow for the Future of Minority Studies Consortium at Cornell University.
From 2006 – 2014, Dr. Coleman held faculty appointments in Africana Studies at Widener University, the University of Delaware, and Johns Hopkins University. In 2014, she was lead faculty facilitator for the UNCF/Mellon Faculty Fellows Domestic Summer Institute held at the University of New Mexico. The seminar titled In Search of Home: An Interdisciplinary Exploration of the Shared Experiences of Indigenous and Immigrant Populations in Colonized Spaces was developed in collaboration with Drs. Cynthia Neal Spence and Beverly Guy Sheftall of UNCF/Mellon, UNM, The Indian Pueblo Cultural Center, and the Laguna Pueblo Nation.
She has lectured and presented papers at academic and public venues, including The Organization of American Historians, The American Historical Association, The Association for the Study of African American Life and History, MIT’s Conference on Race and Science, The National Holocaust Museum, The Virginia Forum, The Woodrow Wilson House, and many others.
She has also lent her expertise on matters of race and ethnicity to the Virginia General Assembly House Rules Committee, NPR, Indian Country Today, History News Network, L.A. Progressive, The Female View Broadcast, Native Trailblazers Blog Radio, CTV (Canada News), the Washington Post, Time Magazine, The North Star, the Atlantic Live, Cheddar TV, and Vox’s Today Explained, and IHeart Radio’s Something Good Program. Her groundbreaking work on the Loving v. Virginia case was cited by The New York Times, The Root, and MadameNoir.
Dr. Coleman’s first book, That the Blood Stay Pure: African Americans, Native Americans and the Predicament of Race and Identity in Virginia (Indiana Unity Press, 2013), a Choice Outstanding Academic Title for 2014, traces the history and legacy of Virginia’s effort to maintain racial purity and the consequences of this almost four hundred year effort on African American – Native American relations and kinship bonds in the Commonwealth.
Her article “Mildred Loving: The Extraordinary Life of an Ordinary Woman” was a finalist for The 2016 Gloria Anzaldua Award by the Committee on Gender and Sexuality Studies of the American Studies Association. Coleman relinquished this award in November 2019 when she learned that the award committee had indulged in unethical practices and a cover-up to guarantee that year’s award winner.
In The Matter of Black Lives: Womanist Prose, Dr. Coleman’s second book published by SistahGurl Press in 2021 is a collection of previously published essays from the years 2000-2020 (with postscripts and a Coda), which provides historical context for current issues of the day.
Coleman’s current project, forthcoming from Palgrave Macmillan, titled Of Waterways, Slaves, and Runaways: A Story of Black Lives in the United States and Canada, 1796-1965, centers her family history within the larger context of United States and Canadian political history.