This year's keynote will be delivered by Dr. Ashley Howard.
Ashley Howard is assistant professor of history and African American Studies at the University of Iowa. Her research interests including African Americans in the Midwest and Black freedom dreams and movements. Her work has appeared in the Middle West Review, Journal of African American History, Labor Studies Journal, the American Historian, Smithsonian Magazine, The Washington Post, The Financial Times and numerous other popular and scholarly outlets. In 2023, she and co-investigator Colin Gordon were awarded a Mellon Foundation grant to examine race-based property restrictions in Iowa. She serves on the board of multiple organizations including the Midwest History Association, the Urban History Association and Black Midwest Initiative. She is the author of Midwest Unrest: 1960s Urban Rebellions and the Black Freedom Movement.