Dissertation:  "A Southern Reclamation: Understanding Black Identity in the Post-Civil Rights Return Migration, 1970-2020"

Advisor: Dr. Randal Hall

Summer Perritt is an ABD Ph.D. candidate in Rice University's history department. She is currently working on her dissertation, which looks at the return migration of Black Americans to the U.S. South in the post-civil rights era. Her work is aimed at understanding the impetus for this migratory phenomenon and what it means for migrant's personal identities and sense of place. She considers herself an activist historian who strives to make her work accessible and meaningful to the people she studies and the wider community. She is actively engaged in public history work and has held positions with the Heritage Society Houston and the National Park Service.