The 1619 Project continues online.
Sherri Burr
University of New Mexico
Sherri Burr is the Dickason Chair and Regents Professor Emerita at the University of New Mexico. She joined the UNM law faculty in 1988, after having received her A.B. (Politics) from Mount Holyoke College, her M.P.A (International Relations) from the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs, and her J.D. from Yale Law School. In 1994 she received tenure and promotion to full professor, becoming the first African American female to do so in New Mexico. In 2015, she was awarded a Monticello Fellowship to conduct research on the Free Blacks of Virginia, the hundreds of thousands of African-Americans who were free before the Civil War. Burr’s ancestors were among this group. Her 27th book, Complicated Lives: Free Blacks in Virginia, 1619-1865 was published in 2019 and nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in History. Burr currently serves as President of New Mexico Press Women and the Third Vice President of the Aaron Burr Association.