Maureen Elgersman Lee

As Director of the Bray School Lab, Maureen Elgersman Lee guides research and collaboration with university faculty, external scholars, graduate students, undergraduates and Bray School descendants.

Dr. Elgersman Lee also serves as Mellon Engagement Coordinator for African American Heritage, supporting W&M initiatives such as the “Sharing Authority to Remember and Re-interpret the Past” grant funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.    

A native of Ontario, Canada, Dr. Elgersman Lee holds a bachelor’s degree in French from Redeemer University as well as a master’s degree in African American Studies and a doctoral degree in Humanities with an emphasis on African American Studies, both from Clark Atlanta University.  Dr. Elgersman Lee has spent more than two decades teaching the history of African-descended people at universities in Georgia, Maine, and Virginia; she also served as executive director of Richmond’s Black History Museum for five years. Dr. Elgersman Lee is the author of multiple books: Unyielding Spirits: Black Women and Slavery in Early Canada and Jamaica (Garland/Taylor & Francis); the award-winning Black Bangor: African Americans in a Maine Community, 1880-1950 (University Press of New England), Richmond’s Leigh Street Armory & African American Militia (co-authored; History Press), and Intersections: A Contemporary Student Primer on Race, Gender, and Class (editor, Cognella Academic). She has served as a Fort Monroe Authority Trustee and has received various grants to further African American community history.