Paula Giddings

Paula Giddings is the Elizabeth A. Woodson 1922 Professor of Afro-American Studies at Smith College, where she also serves as editor of the scholarly journal, Meridians: Feminism, Race, Transnationalism. Giddings is the author of four books on the social and political history of African-American women, including the award-winning Ida: A Sword Among Lions (Amistad), and is a sought after speaker at universities, historical societies, and churches.

Giddings’ first book, When and Where I Enter: The Impact on Black Women on Race and Sex in America (Amistad) was said by Maya Angelou to have “shone a brilliant light on the lives of women left in the shadow of history.” It quickly became a best-seller and was adopted by colleges worldwide for courses on the subject. Her writing, teaching, and presentations brilliantly illuminate the complicated history of black women in America, in a manner that is both eloquent and moving.

Giddings’ latest book, Ida: A Sword Among Lions (Amistad), is a biography of the anti-lynching activist, Ida B. Wells that places her firmly in the context of her times as well as ours. It won the 2008 Los Angeles Times Book Award for Biography, received the 2008 Letitia Woods Brown Book Award from the Association of Black Women Historians and the Gustavus Myers Center for the Study of Bigotry and Human Rights Outstanding Book Award and was the 2009 Nonfiction winner of the Black Caucus of the American Library Association Literary Award. It was also a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for 2008 and was named a Best Book of 2008 by both the Washington Post and the Chicago Tribune. Giddings is also the author of In Search of Sisterhood: Delta Sigma Theta and the Challenge of the Black Sorority Movement (Amistad), and was the editor of Burning All Illusions (Nation Books), an anthology of articles on race published by the Nation magazine from 1867 to 2000.

Giddings was formerly a book editor and journalist who has written extensively on international and national issues and has been published by the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Philadelphia Inquirer, Jeune Afrique (Paris),  The Nation, and the journals Meridians: Feminism, Race, Transnationalism, and Sage: A Scholarly Journal on Black Women, among other publications. Before Smith College, Giddings taught at: Spelman College, where she was a United Negro Fund Distinguished Scholar; Douglass College/Rutgers University as the Laurie Chair in Women’s Studies; Princeton and Duke Universities. 

Giddings has been awarded fellowships by the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Humanities Center in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, and the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University (declined). She has also been awarded Honorary Doctorates from Bennett College and Wesleyan University, and was named a Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar. Giddings is also the proud recipient of the Candace Award from the National Coalition of 100 Black Women, and the Anna Julia Cooper Award from Sage: A Scholarly Journal on Black Women.

Giddings is a member of P.E.N., a writers’ group, the Authors Guild Foundation, Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, and the Coalition of 100 Black Women.

Ida B. Wells and the Campaign Against Lynching

Social History of Black Women in America

Feminism, Race, and Resistance

The Politics of Race and Gender in America