Kelly Schmidt

Kelly L. Schmidt studies African American history and focuses on the histories of race, slavery, resistance, and abolition in the United States. As a public historian, she has studied how educational institutions, religious organizations, insurance companies and banks, municipalities, and historic sites are addressing their historical entanglements with slavery and is involved in working with institutions and communities to research their ties to slavery and racism and engage in repair work. Her recent scholarship has examined the experiences of people enslaved to members of the Catholic Church, particularly people enslaved to the Jesuit order. She has assisted descendant communities and Catholic institutions in examining their histories with enslavement.