Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham

Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham (born 1945) is an American academic who is professor of Afro-American Studies, African American Religion and the Victor S. Thomas Professor of History and African American Studies at Harvard University.

Higginbotham often accompanied her father to his work, which allowed her to encounter and become familiar with many significant early African-American historians, including Rayford Logan, Charles H. Wesley and Benjamin Quarles. Higginbotham later related how this unique experience shaped her later career choice, "I knew from childhood that I wanted to teach, research, and write about the history of African Americans." Stories her father told her of family members also inspired her. Her great-grandfather, Albert Royal Brooks, was born into slavery in Virginia in 1817, and after the American Civil War then began to serve on the jury to try former Confederate president Jefferson Davis. Higginbotham's great-grandmother, Lucy Goode Brooks, created one of the first, post-Civil War orphanages serving black children. It was then called the Friends Asylum for Colored Orphans. It still operates as FRIENDS Association for Children, a preschool/after school care center. Her grandfather, Walter Henderson Brooks, was a pastor at Nineteenth Street Baptist Church (Washington, D.C.), the oldest black Baptist congregation in Washington D.C. Higginbotham's aunt, Julia Evangeline Brooks, was one of the incorporators of Alpha Kappa Alpha, the first African-American sorority.

Career Higginbotham taught American history and counseled students completing the eighth grade at Francis Parkman Jr. High School in Milwaukee, Wisconsin from 1969 to 1971. After students filed a lawsuit with detailed allegations of Comaroff's actions and the university's failure to respond, Higginbotham was one of several signatories to say that she wished to retract her signature. Higginbotham was involved in the creation of AP African American Studies, a college-level course available to high school students.

Honors and recognition Higginbotham has won numerous awards throughout the years for her books, publications and research. In 1994, she received the Scholar's Medal of the University of Rochester. In 2000, she was awarded the YWCA of Boston's Women of Achievement Award. In 2003, Harvard University chose Higginbotham to be a Walter Channing Fellow in recognition of her achievements in history. She was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters degree from Howard University in 2011. In 2012, she was honored with the Living Legacy award by the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASAALH) and was also awarded the Joan Kelly Memorial Prize in Women's History from the American Historical Association and the Letitia Woods Brown Memorial Award from the Association of Black Women Historians.