Salamishah Tillet Biography

Salamishah Tillet, a scholar, activist, social critic, and media personality, was named one of the country's top modern feminist authors by feminist icon Gloria Steinem. She has dedicated her life to advancing our most marginalized individuals' rights and quality of life. She has often contributed to The New York Times and has appeared on the BBC, CNN, MSNBC, NPR, Ebony, and Essence. She has also written for The Atlantic.com, The Chicago Tribune, The Guardian, The Nation, The Root, and Time.com. She is currently an assistant professor of English and Africana Studies and a staff member of the University of Pennsylvania's Alice Paul Center for Research on Women, Gender, and Sexuality. She received her Ph.D. in the History of American Civilization from Harvard University, her A.M. in English and American Literature, and her M.A. in the Art of Teaching from Brown University. She graduated with honors and earned a Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Pennsylvania with a B.A. in English and African American Studies. In addition to being named one of the "Top 50 Global Leaders Eliminating Violence Against Children" by Together for Girls' Safe magazine and one of America's "Top Leaders Under 30" by Ebony, she was nominated as "Woman of the Year" by Glamour magazine. The University of Pennsylvania's Edmund J. and Louise W. Kahn Prize for Outstanding Teaching by an Assistant Professor was given to her in 2010. She won the Woodrow Wilson Foundation Fellow for Career Development in 2010–2011 and worked as a visiting scholar at Princeton University's Center for African American Studies. She served as a Scholar-in-Residence at the Schomburg Center for Research in African Culture of the New York Public Library from 2013–2014. Sites of Slavery: Citizenship and Racial Democracy in the Post-Civil Rights Imagination, by Harvard University's Alphonse Fletcher University Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr., is hailed as "an original contribution" and "a dazzling analysis of the many ways slavery lives in the contemporary imagination and colors our past, present, and future." She penned the liner notes for John Legend and The Roots Wake Up! album in 2011, which won three Grammy Awards, and for the Legacy release of Nina Simone Sings the Blues in 2016. She presented with Gloria Steinem at TedxWomen in 2011 and collaborated with Amazon to publish "Gloria Steinem: The Kindle Singles Interview" in 2013. She is now writing a book about Nina Simone, a pioneer in the Civil Rights movement. A Long Way Home, Inc. (ALWH), a Chicago-based national non-profit organization that utilizes art to empower young people and stop violence against girls and women, was created in 2003 by Salamishah and her sister, Scheherazade Tillet. The Girl/Friends Young Leaders Program for young girls and the SOARS Collegiate Initiatives to Prevent Campus Rape are ALWH's two primary initiatives to end gender-based violence. ALWH has been featured in Ebony, The New Yorker, NY Times, and Washington Post for its cutting-edge, intersectional approach to addressing gender violence. It has also been on CNN, MSNBC, and NPR and awarded significant funds from the Global Girls Fund and the NoVo Foundation. In addition, Salamishah worked as an associate producer on Aishah Shahidah Simmons' ground-breaking NO! The Rape Documentary appeared in Cambridge Documentary Films' Rape Is..., which won an award.

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