Re-Introducing the Moderator of Our Conversation Series: Dr. Zinga A. Fraser

On Monday, March 27th, The Shirley Chisholm Project will host the first event in its Conversation Series: The Battlefront is the Classroom – A Discussion on Racial Equity in Education, Culture Wars & the Fight for Independent Schools.

Dr. Fraser is an award-winning interdisciplinary scholar. She is an author, lecturer, historical consultant and philanthropist. Currently, She is an Assistant Professor in the Africana Studies Department at Brooklyn College. She is also the Director of the Shirley Chisholm Project on Brooklyn Women’s Activism at Brooklyn College. Dr. Fraser is a foremost expert on Shirley Chisholm and Black Congressional women. She is known nationally for her expertise in Black Politics, Black Women’s History and Black women’s cultural politics.

She is currently completing her book manuscript titled, Sister Insider/ Sister Outsider: Shirley Chisholm and Barbara Jordan, Black Women’s Politics in the Post- Civil Rights Era. In addition to another forthcoming book under contract with the University of California Press on Shirley Chisholm’s intellectual legacy. She has appeared on local, national and international news outlets such as: The New York Times, Washington Post, Essence Magazine, Elle Magazine docuseries, Buzzfeed News, C-SPAN, BBC- Africa, NY1 and WNBC-TV, WABC- TV, USA Today, National Public Radio and many others. She has published several works, her most recent essay in the Boston Review book The Right To Be Elected: 100 Years Since Women’s Suffrage that explores Shirley Chisholm’s Democratic Legacy.

Dr. Fraser holds a doctorate in African American Studies with a concentration in Race, Politics and Culture from Northwestern University, and a Master’s of Arts from the Institute for Research in African American Studies at Columbia University and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science and African American Studies from Temple University. She has received numerous awards and fellowships including the American Political Science Association, American Association of University Women and was a Paul Robeson Fellow at Columbia University. Before entering academia, Dr. Fraser served as the former U.S. Policy Director for the Women’s Development and Environmental Organization (WEDO).

Additionally, Dr. Fraser was also a legislative assistant on Capitol Hill for the late Congressman Major R. Owens. She is also a proud member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Inc, where she serves on Sister Scholar Board for the Delta Research and Educational Foundation in Washington, DC and the Gucci Changemakers Board. She is currently the Co-Chair of the Alumni Council for the Department of African American and African Diaspora at Columbia University. As a Brooklynite, Dr. Fraser and her mother created the Leonard Fraser Memorial Scholarship in Science and Education that provides money to a deserving Brooklyn High School senior in honor of her late father Leonard Fraser, who was both an activist, poet and educator.

Committed to being a changemaker Dr. Fraser’s life abides by one of Shirley Chisholm’s most famous quotes. “Service is rent we pay for the privilege of living on this earth.”