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About Me

Dr. Sharron Wilkins Conrad is a historian of the Civil Rights Movement and how it intersects with the American presidency. Sharron is a Senior Fellow at Southern Methodist University’s Center for Presidential History. She joined the Center for Presidential History in 2019, and is currently a Professor of History at Tarrant County College in Fort Worth, Texas.

Her book, The Trinity: John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, and Civil Rights in African American Memory, examines how perceptions of John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson’s civil rights leadership developed, hardened, and continue to circulate within the black community. A key aspect of her scholarship focused on the process by which Kennedy emerged as a civil rights hero for African Americans while Johnson—who fought for and signed into law historic civil rights legislation—has been viewed as being motivated solely by political self-interest. The Trinity will be released by The University of North Carolina Press in May 2026.

Sharron received her PhD in Humanities from The University of Texas at Dallas in 2019. She holds a BA in History and Anthropology from Penn State University, and a MA in Public History from Howard University. Previously, she served as Director of Education and Public Programs at The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza, interpreting the life and legacy of President Kennedy. Her professional career has included appointments at history museums and cultural institutions around the country.

Sharron has published in Time magazine, American Quarterly, and American Visions magazine, and in the edited volume, Mourning the Presidents. Her research has been supported by a Theodore C. Sorensen Research Fellowship from The John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum; a Moody Research Grant from The Lyndon Johnson Foundation; a UTD Dean of Graduate Education Dissertation Research Award; and a Howard University Hawthorne Graduate Fellowship. In 2024 her work was recognized by The African American Intellectual History Society’s Maria Stewart Prize for best journal article. The University of Texas at Dallas’s Arts & Humanities Department bestowed on her its 2019 Best Dissertation Award and its Frank R. Rossister Book Prize for Best Student Award. In 2017, the university honored her with its President’s Teaching Excellence Award for Graduate Student Teaching.

Recent Publications

Recent publications are linked here: https://www.sharronconrad.com/about

Media Coverage

https://www.sharronconrad.com/

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Country Focus

United States

Expertise by Geography

United States

Expertise by Chronology

20th century

Expertise by Topic

American Presidents, Museums, Public History, Race