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.

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.