Lynda Day
Professor, Department of Africana Studies, Brooklyn College
Lynda Day is a professor in the Africana Studies Department at Brooklyn College. She received her Ph.D. in African history at the University of Wisconsin and her B.A. in comparative history from Howard University. Her interest in political leaders in Africa led to research in Sierra Leone in 1979, 1981–82, 1995, 2005, 2007, 2012, and 2014. She was awarded a Senior Fulbright Scholar Fellowship and taught for a year at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in Kumasi, Ghana. Her book, Gender and Power, the Women Chiefs of Sierra Leone, the Last Two Hundred Years, analyzed traditional Mende women political leaders, illuminating gendered political authority in the history of the region. For two years she served as the Endowed Chair of Women and Gender Studies at Brooklyn College. In that role she raised awareness of the work of African women in the areas of sustainability, media representation, and post-war reconstruction through seminars, speakers, and films. She has written numerous articles on women leaders in Sierra Leone and Ghana, as well as the black history of Long Island.
