KABRIA BAUMGARTNER, Ph.D. writes about the hidden and often forgotten lived experiences of African-descended people in New England and the Atlantic World. She is the author of the award-winning book, In Pursuit of Knowledge: Black Women and Educational Activism in Antebellum America (New York University Press, 2019), and she has published scholarly articles and popular writing including most recently in Newburyport Magazine. Her research has been supported by grants and prestigious fellowships from the Spencer Foundation, the National Academy of Education, the Massachusetts Historical Society, the American Antiquarian Society, and the National Park Service. She has consulted on and appeared in historical documentaries including most recently Legacy of Courage: Black Changemakers in Massachusetts Past, Present, Future (2022).

Baumgartner is a tenured faculty member at Northeastern University and works with local historical organizations and nonprofit groups as a public historian and curator. In 2021, she co-founded the award-winning Newburyport Black History Initiative (NBHI), an organization that aims to highlight and incorporate Black history into the public landscape in Newburyport, Massachusetts. She served as chief historian of Harvard University’s Slavery Remembrance Program, and she co-curated and co-wrote the exhibition, Let None Be Excluded: The Origins of Equal School Rights in Salem, which was on view at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts from April 2022 to April 2024.