INDIANAPOLIS, IN April 23, 2004 -โ€" Hine is currently a John A. Hannah Distinguished Professor of History at Michigan State University. She completed her graduate studies at Kent State University, earning an M.A. in 1970, followed by a Ph.D. (1985). Hine has lectured for over 35 years, largely at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana and Michigan State University in Lansing, Michigan.
In September, Hine joins the board of trustees of African American Studies at Northwestern University, where she will create and build a graduate (Ph.D.) program in the same field. โ€œI will be working to ensure scholarships and fellowships for those individuals interested in the study of African Americans. I want our young men and women to come, study, and do graduate work at Northwestern. My goal is to ensure positions for our graduates,โ€ Hine says.
Hine is the author of a two-volume set touted by many librarians to be the most frequently requested library reference guide in the United States: Black Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia.
This fall, Oxford University Press releases the revised, expanded and enlarged edition of this encyclopedia. The new release is a three-volume set and includes over 750 images that support reference entries.
She has edited and written widely on black history, and particularly on black women as related to the nursing profession and the Midwest. Other works authored by Hine include โ€œAfrican-American Odysseyโ€ (Addison Wesley, 2002), โ€œA Shining Thread of Hopeโ€ (Bantam Doubleday Dell, 1999), and โ€œHine Sight: Black Women and the Reconstruction of American Historyโ€ (Indiana University Press, 1997). She has also co-edited numerous anthologies, including a 16-volume set on African American history.
Upcoming from Hine, in addition to her revised Black Women in America encyclopedia, is a book titled, โ€œFreedom is Our Business: The Black Professional Class and the Origins of the Civil Movement.โ€ This particular title is 25-years in the making and would have been finished long ago, according to Hine, had it not been for Indianapolis primary school teacher, Shirley Herd, issuing her a challenge in the early 1970s.
At that time, Herd was president of the National Council of Negro Women (NCNW), Indianapolis Chapter; and, Hine was faculty in the history department at Purdue University. Herd's chapter of the NCNW wanted to produce for its organization a history project of African American women's experiences and contributions in Indiana.
According to Hine, Herd challenged her to tell the story of the history of these African American women. Hine recalls, โ€œThe only black women we ever studied were Phyllis Wheatley, Harriet Tubman, and Sojourner Truth. And none of them lived in Indiana!โ€
Hine goes on to say, โ€œShirley challenged me at a time in my life when I assured her, even as faculty in a history department, that I knew nothing about black history [emphasis Hines. She is responsible for turning me into an historian. I have her to thank for that.โ€
This exchange eventually led to Hine's first major publication in the field African American women's history, โ€œWhen the Truth is Told: A History of Black Women's Culture and Community in Indiana, 1874-1950 (1981),โ€ and โ€œBlack Women in the Middle West Projectโ€ (Indiana Historical Bureau, 1985).
Even as prominent Indianapolis businesswomen and philanthropists gather to pay their respects and offer their thanks to Hine for her work blazing new paths for โ€" and understanding of โ€" African Americans and their history, Hine is deliberate in her acknowledgement of her mentor in Herd, and her motivation as a historian.
โ€œI am eager to tell the stories of the lives and professions of black women, from a historical perspective. This country has survived this long, I believe, because of the black woman. And our daughters -- and our granddaughters โ€" have been paying attention.โ€
Today, we have Hine to thank for blazing the path in the field of African American Studies, and particularly the study of African American women. And, like Hine, we have a local school teacher to thank for issuing a challenge to study. Hine has surely risen to the challenge.
Note to Editors: Digital photos are available upon request.