vailsymposium

Cassandra L. Newby-Alexander, Ph.D. is the Endowed Professor of Virginia Black History and Culture and the former Dean of the College of Liberal Arts at Norfolk State University. She is the author of more than 40 books, articles and other publications including “Virginia Waterways and the Underground Railroad” (2017) and “An African American History of the Civil War in Hampton Roads” (2010).

Newby-Alexander has received grants totaling more than $1.5 million that has funded research and public programs and served as the co-chair of the Virginia Commission on African American History Education in the Commonwealth. She is active on numerous other commissions and boards including the Commission to Study the History of the Uprooting of Black Communities by Public Institutions of Higher Education in the Commonwealth, the Virginia Commission to Study Slavery and Subsequent De Jure and De Facto Racial and Economic Discrimination Against African Americans, the University of Virginia Press Board, Virginia Law Foundation, the Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation, Portsmouth’s VA250 Committee, Norfolk’s VA250 Committee, and Norfolk Fest Events.

Dr. Newby-Alexander has appeared on numerous national programs and documentaries including NBC’s Nightly News on the descendants of slaveholders, PBS’s “Many Rivers to Cross,” C-SPAN’s “Lectures in History” series on the Underground Railroad, C-SPAN’s “African Americans in Hampton Roads, Virginia” for the Virginia Center for Civil War Studies Conference, the History Channel’s Race, Slavery and the Civil War, and BBC News’ “The British Role in America’s Tainted Past.” She also was honored to be a guest twice on Clay Jenkinson’s “Listening to America” for the 2024 episode on the Underground Railroad and the June 2025 episode on race relations in America.