Sowande’ Mustakeem ’00 can trace her current doctoral studies at Michigan State University all the way back to her days at Elon in history professor Mary Jo Festle’s course titled, “African-American History, 1850-present.”
“She’s so meticulous about history and the way students engage in it,” Mustakeem says of Festle. “She was laying the foundation for me to become a historian, and I didn’t even realize it.”
Mustakeem became so fascinated with African-American history that she proposed her own course of study in the subject through Elon’s independent major program. She became the first Elon student to earn a degree in African-American Studies and subsequently earned a master’s degree in African American & African Studies from Ohio State University.
At Festle’s suggestion, Mustakeem enrolled in Michigan State’s Comparative Black History doctoral program, where her studies have allowed her to focus on the history of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade. Her work has caught the attention of the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History in New York City, which recently awarded Mustakeem a fellowship to fund her research work.
Since January, Mustakeem has spent her time in Britain, examining records at government offices and maritime museums in Liverpool and London that document the legal trade of slaves by British companies to the West Indies and America during the 18th century. Last fall, she conducted research in Rhode Island, New York and Boston.
“I’ve found letters between merchants and notes about ship revolts and suicides,” says Mustakeem. “Sometimes you find things you don’t expect. That’s the thing about history. You can go into research with all sorts of great theories and ideas, but you have to allow your sources to speak. Sometimes, their stories are different from what you thought you would find.”
Mustakeem plans to complete her dissertation in 2008 and looks to land a tenure-track teaching position at a university in the near future. “I really want to work with both undergraduate and graduate students. And I’ll continue to conduct research and at some point revise my dissertation, which I hope will lead to my first published book.”