Rate My Professor Adriane Lentz-Smith

Adriane Lentz-Smith is Associate Professor of History and African & African American Studies at Duke University, positions she has held since 2012 and 2026, respectively. She joined Duke in 2007 as Assistant Professor of History, serving in endowed roles such as Hunt Family Assistant Professor (2010-2012) and Andrew W. Mellon Assistant Professor (2009-2010). Additional appointments include Associate Professor in the Program of Gender, Sexuality & Feminist Studies (2021-present), Director of the Ethics of Now Series in the Kenan Institute for Ethics (2018-present), Associate Chair of History (2019-2022), and Director of Undergraduate Studies in History (2013-2015). Lentz-Smith earned her Ph.D. in History from Yale University in 2005 and her B.A. in History from Harvard-Radcliffe. She teaches courses on modern U.S. history, African American history, the Civil Rights Movement, Black Lives, Modern America, and History in Fact and Fiction.

Her research examines Black freedom struggles and state power in the long twentieth century, with expertise in African Americans' civil rights history in the 20th century and African American soldiers. Lentz-Smith is the author of Freedom Struggles: African Americans and World War I (Harvard University Press, 2009), which received the Honor Book Award from the National Black Caucus of the American Library Association in 2010. Other key publications include "Passports to Adventure: African Americans and the US Security Project" (American Quarterly, 2016), "The Unbearable Whiteness of Grand Strategy" (2021), "Fighting Jim Crow in a World of Empire" (2022), "The Laws Have Hurt Me: Violence, Violation, and Black Women's Struggles for Civil Rights" (Southern Cultures, 2020), and "On the Experiences of Black Historians" (Modern American History, 2021). She serves on the editorial board of Modern American History (2016-2027) and has held roles such as Co-Chair of the Program Committee for the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations (2017) and Member-at-Large of the Advisory Committee on Historical Diplomatic Documentation, U.S. Department of State (2018-2024). Lentz-Smith was a National Humanities Center Fellow (2020-21) while drafting chapters for her current project, The Slow Death of Sagon Penn: State Violence and the Twilight of Civil Rights, which traces state violence and white supremacy in the post-1960s era through a 1980s police encounter in San Diego. Earlier awards include the Ford Foundation Dissertation Fellowship (2003) and Provost's Postdoctoral Fellowship, University of North Carolina (2005). She engages broad publics as a historical consultant for U.S. and European documentaries, television, and podcasts; featured in PBS programs such as Voice of Freedom, Forgotten Hero, American Diplomat, and The Great War; and through invited talks at venues like Jazz at Lincoln Center, Truman Library Institute, and National Museum of African American History and Culture. As host of "The Ethics of Now," she facilitates discussions on pressing issues with authors, journalists, policymakers, and scholars.