J. Brent Morris, Ph.D
J. Brent Morris Brent Morris is Professor of History and Humanities Department Chair at the University of South Carolina Beaufort and Director of the USCB Institute for the Study of the Reconstruction Era. His book Oberlin, Hotbed of Abolitionism: College, Community, and the Fight for Freedom and Equality in Antebellum America was published by UNC Press in 2014, and won the Henry Howe Prize for outstanding historical monograph. He is also the author of Yes Lord I Know the Road: A Documentary History of African Americans in South Carolina, 1526-2008 published in 2017 by USC Press, and forthcoming books Dismal Freedom: A History of the Maroons of the Great Dismal Swamp, The Changing Palmetto State, A New History of South Carolina from WWII to the Present (co-authored with Walter Edgar), A South Carolina Chronology, 1497-2020 (with Walter Edgar and C. James Taylor), and Reconstruction at 150: Reassessing the Revolutionary New Birth of Freedom (with Orville Vernon Burton). His scholarship has also been published in the New York Times, the American Historical Review, Slavery & Abolition, Civil War History, the Journal of Southern History, the Journal of African American History, Southern Studies, and the South Carolina Historical Magazine. Brent was the 2010 recipient of the South Carolina Historical Society's Malcolm C. Clark Award, was named 2016 University of South Carolina Breakthrough Star for Research and Scholarship (the most prestigious scholarly award for junior faculty in the USC system), 2016 American Alliance of Museums Gold MUSE award winner (Digital Communities), and the 2018 Award of the Order of the South, the highest award bestowed by the Southern Academy of Letters, Arts, and Sciences.
News and Upcoming Events
Morris honored with 2016 Breakthrough Star Award
Oberlin, Hotbed of Abolitionism awarded 2016 Henry Howe Award of the Ohio Genealogical Society
Presenting at OAH April 10, 2016
"Decidedly the Best Anti-Slavery Field in the Country”: Oberlin, the West, and
Abolitionist Schism"
Morris to give USCB 2015 Convocation Address
Vernon Burton and I are editing an anthology of new scholarship on the Reconstruction Era, Call for Chapter Proposals here (deadline 6-15-15)
My annual lectures for UPenn/Wharton Lauder Global MBA Program, June 1, Columbia
Documentary film series on Fort Fredrick and Beaufort in Reconstruction is live
USCB hosting Phi Alpha Theta national history honor society Carolina's Regional Conference
2015 Palmetto Connections Symposium April 18, 2015
Oberlin, Hotbed of Abolitionism featured on John Fea's blog :The Way of Improvement Leads Home
Announcing $200,000 National Endowment for the Humanities grant for summer 2015 institute "America's Reconstruction: The Untold Story"
Oberlin, Hotbed of Abolitionism now out from UNC Press!
The Great Dismal Swamp Landscape Study group webpage is now live! Click here for more information on my current major project.
"Life in the Swamp," New York Times Opinionator, October 19, 2013