Lisa Lenoir

Campus:

IU Bloomington

Lisa D. Lenoir is a critical/cultural media sociologist who studies race, gender, and class. She holds a Ph.D. in media sociology from the University of Missouri-Columbia; an M.S. in International Public Service from DePaul University; and a B.A. in Journalism, with a minor in Graphic Design from Indiana University Bloomington. For 17 years she worked as a professional journalist covering and editing everything from fire to fashion at the Marietta Times (Marietta, Ohio); The Peoria Journal Star; The Indianapolis Star; and the Chicago Sun-Times. She was an instructor at Columbia College Chicago for 14 years and an assistant professor at Stephens College in Missouri teaching fashion communication for seven years. She was a Lillian Kopenhaver Center Fellow in 2017 and won numerous awards as a journalist. Her research uses a critical and cultural paradigm to examine contemporary cultural phenomena in media discourses.

The purpose of Professor Lenoir's recovery Black digital humanities project is to explore Mattie Smith Colin’s work at the Chicago Defender and situate her in the canon of lifestyle journalism and its writers as well as address the genre’s role in the Black press. The Chicago Defender has a tremendous legacy for its radical role in inspiring African Americans to migrate from the Jim Crow South to northern cities; chronicling the Civil Rights Movement; and documenting former President Barack Obama’s ascension in politics.

Colin’s work will broaden the rich historical record of other Black women such as Mary Ann Shadd Cary, the first Black woman publisher of an antebellum Black press in North America; Ida B. Wells, the activist known for her Red Record (1895), documenting the alleged causes of lynchings in the United States; and Amy Jacques Garvey, Marcus Garvey’s second wife known for expanding Garveyism. Colin resided in both political and everyday life realms within Chicago; and through her writing, she provided insight into how Black people negotiated joy and pain.

Lenoir's goal is to compile a sustainable, digital bibliography of Colin’s political and lifestyle journalism stories and coverage of Emmett Till’s return from Money, Mississippi, to Chicago, Illinois. The project will entail hosting public discussions in Chicago, inviting friends and colleagues of Colin to share experiences about the journalist’s work; conducting oral histories; and documenting her life and work from 1950-1955.