Tameka Bradley Hobbs

Tameka Bradley Hobbs is a historian, educator, author, and activist. She currently serves as the Library Regional Manager of Broward County Library's African American Research Library and Cultural Center in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. She previously served as associate provost of Florida Memorial University and the founding director of the FMU Social Justice Institute think tank and research center. She is the author of the 2015 history book Democracy Abroad, Lynching at Home: Racial Violence in Florida.

Early life and education Hobbs was raised in Live Oak, Florida. While an undergraduate at Florida A&M University, Hobbs was inspired by an African American history course to shift the focus of her studies from business to history, She became interested in becoming an oral historian after speaking with her grandfather about his experience living in Live Oak, and his recollections of the lynching of Willie James Howard in Live Oak, and then focused her research while a graduate student at Florida State University on the history of racial violence in Florida.

Hobbs completed her master's degree and PhD at Florida State University.

Career Hobbs' experience as an educator includes teaching at Florida A&M University, Virginia State University, and John Tyler Community College. and history. In 2015, Hobbs published Democracy Abroad, Lynching At Home: Racial Violence In Florida, which won a Bronze Florida Book Award In 2021, Hobbs described oral history as a way to "wrest control of a community's narrative from white-controlled institutions."

In 2020, as associate provost at Florida Memorial University, Hobbs became the founding director of the FMU Social Justice Institute, a think tank and research center focused on systemic racism in Florida. When the US Congress considered making lynching a federal crime in 2020, Hobbs spoke with The New York Times about people who lack of awareness of the historical magnitude of violence motivated by racism in the United States, and stated, "I think if they understood that, perhaps they would understand the Black Lives Matter movement as an extension of centuries, really, of advocacy on the part of African-Americans."

In 2022, Hobbs served as the inaugural executive director of the A. Philip Randolph Institute for Law, Race, Social Justice, and Economic Policy at Edward Waters University.

In November 2022, she became the Regional Manager of the African American Research Library and Cultural Center.

Works

Hobbs, Tameka Bradley (2013). Junebug and the Gumbo Garden. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform. Hobbs, Tameka Bradley and Austin, Jason (2016). Soar. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform.

Honors and awards 2015 Florida Book Award Bronze Medal for Democracy Abroad, Lynching At Home 2016 Harry T. and Harriette V. Moore Award from the Florida Historical Society for Democracy Abroad, Lynching At Home