Background
Suzanne E. Smith was born on August 19, 1964, in Detroit, Michigan, United States. She is the daughter of Gerald and Caralee Narden Smith.
University of California, Los Angeles, CA 90095, United States
The University of California, Los Angeles, where Suzanne E. Smith received her Bachelor of Arts degree.
5000 Forbes Ave, Pittsburgh, PA 15213, United States
Carnegie Mellon University where Suzanne E. Smith received her Master of Arts degree.
Yale University, New Haven, CT 06520, United States
Yale University where Suzanne E. Smith received her Doctor of Philosophy degree.
(Detroit in the 1960s was a city with a pulse: people were...)
Detroit in the 1960s was a city with a pulse: people were marching in step with Martin Luther King, Jr., dancing in the street with Martha and the Vandellas, and facing off with city police. Through it all, Motown provided the beat. This book tells the story of Motown - as both musical style and entrepreneurial phenomenon - and of its intrinsic relationship to the politics and culture of Motor Town, United States. As Suzanne Smith traces the evolution of Motown from a small record company firmly rooted in Detroit's black community to an international music industry giant, she gives her readers a clear look at cultural politics at the grassroots level.
https://www.amazon.com/Dancing-Street-Cultural-Politics-Detroit/dp/0674005465
1999
(From antebellum slavery to the twenty-first century, Afri...)
From antebellum slavery to the twenty-first century, African-American funeral directors have orchestrated funerals or "homegoing" ceremonies with dignity and pageantry. As entrepreneurs in a largely segregated trade, they were among the few black individuals in any community who were economically independent and not beholden to the local white power structure. With the dawning of the civil rights age, these entrepreneurs were drawn into the movement to integrate American society but were also uncertain how racial integration would affect their business success. From the beginning, this tension between personal gain and community service shaped the history of African-American funeral directing. To Serve the Living offers a fascinating history of how African-American funeral directors have been integral to the fight for freedom.
https://www.amazon.com/Serve-Living-Funeral-Directors-American/dp/0674036212
2010
Suzanne E. Smith was born on August 19, 1964, in Detroit, Michigan, United States. She is the daughter of Gerald and Caralee Narden Smith.
Suzanne Smith received a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of California, Los Angeles, in 1986. Two years later, in 1988, she obtained a Master of Arts degree from Carnegie Mellon University. She also got a Doctor of Philosophy degree in American studies from Yale University in 1996.
Suzanne Smith is a professor of History and Art History at the College of Humanities and Social Sciences of George Mason University where she began as an associate professor of history in 1995. Her interest is the United States history including African-American history, 20th-century cultural history, history of death in America, American popular music, and African-American religious history. Her current research agenda focuses on the history of African-American religion in modern America. She regularly teaches courses in African-American history, American popular music, and civil rights and citizenship.
In addition to her teaching career, Smith is also known as the author. Her first book, Dancing in the Street: Motown and the Cultural Politics of Detroit (1999), examines Motown and its relationship to the black community of Detroit and the civil rights movement. Rolling Stone magazine, in conjunction with BMI and New York University, awarded Dancing in the Street third prize in the 2000 Ralph Gleason Music Book Award competition for excellence in writing about popular music. Her second book, To Serve the Living: Funeral Directors and the African American Way of Death (2010), explores the central role of funeral directors in African-American life.
She also contributed to various public history projects including the film Rachel Carson's Silent Spring for the American Experience series on PBS and the series, I'll Make Me A World: African American Arts in the Twentieth Century, from Blackside Productions.
(From antebellum slavery to the twenty-first century, Afri...)
2010(Detroit in the 1960s was a city with a pulse: people were...)
1999Suzanne Smith is a member of the American Studies Association, American Historical Association, and Organization of American Historians.