Biography
Dr. Lillie J. Edwards
Lillie Johnson Edwards, PhD served as the founding Director of Pan-African Studies and as Director of American Studies at Drew University in Madison, NJ before retiring in 2016. While at Drew, she received awards for university faculty service and for excellent and distinguished teaching in the College of Liberal Arts and the Caspersen School of Graduate Studies. Prior to working at Drew, she taught at DePaul University (Chicago, IL), UNC-Chapel Hill (Chapel Hill, NC), and Earlham College (Richmond, IN).
As a public intellectual committed to bringing African American studies to adult audiences, Dr. Edwards lectures and consults with corporations, libraries and archives, historical societies and museums, faith-based communities, and school districts. She has lectured on a broad range of African American topics for the National Jewish Museum (Washington, DC); Apple, Inc.; Check Technologies (New York); the Fritz Ascher Society (New York); the League of Women Voters; the Montclair Adult School and the Montclair Institute for Lifelong Learning; the New Jersey NAACP, and other organizations. Using compelling images as historical evidence, Dr. Edwards gives audiences a broad and deep understanding of African American and U.S. history. Known for a lecture style that inspires stimulating, candid conversation about challenging topics, she combines intellectual and scholarly knowledge with a profound personal commitment to social justice. Her lectures illuminate the contemporary human condition and elevate our common humanity.
Dr. Edwards has served as an education consultant and review panelist for education programs sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Ford Foundation, the New Jersey Council for the Humanities, and the National Park Service Washington Headquarters. She has worked with K-12 educators, consortia, and community stakeholders such as the Garden State Coalition of Schools, the New Jersey Education Association (NJEA); the NJ Council for Social Studies, and the Montclair State University Network for Educational Renewal (MSUNER). She served as a gubernatorial appointee to New Jersey’s Amistad Commission from 2002-2019 and returned to serve as the Commission’s chair in 2022 to guide the strategic decisions that will support New Jersey educators as they infuse African Americans into the K-12 curriculum.
Dr. Edwards is vice-chair of the Oberlin College Board of Trustees, chairs the Tenure and Promotion Committee and chaired Oberlin’s 2016-2017 Presidential Search Committee. She is a founding board member of The Mark Cares, Inc., established in 2020 to serve the social and educational needs of children and families in Essex County, NJ. Dr. Edwards is a member of St. Mark’s United Methodist Church, Montclair, NJ, where she serves as chair of the Leadership Board, having served previously as coordinator of worship ministries. She was recently appointed as a lay member of the Board of Ordained Ministries of the New Jersey Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church. Dr. Edwards is a life member of the Association of Black Women Historians (ABWH) and the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH) which presented her with the Mary McLeod Bethune Award.
Dr. Edwards is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Oberlin College where she received the Distinguished Alumni Award in 2002. She received her doctorate in U.S. Southern history, African history, and African literature from the University of Chicago where she studied under the preeminent historian, the late Dr. John Hope Franklin. She has published several articles on African American women and African American religion in encyclopedia and anthologies. Her biography for pre-teens, Denmark Vesey, won the New York Public Library “Book for the Teen Age.” She is also the co-author of an anthology of readings for high school students and teachers to use as they read Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe.
Dr. Edwards is a native of Columbus, Georgia. She and her husband, Paul B. Edwards, have two adult children.