Jessie Morgan-Owens

Jessie is University Lecturer of American Literature and American Studies at Leiden University, beginning in the fall of 2021. Formerly Dean of Studies at Bard Early College in New Orleans, an initiative to increase access to college and the liberal arts by offering tuition-free, immersive college experiences for public high school students. Her first book, Girl in Black and White: The Story of Mary Mildred Williams and the Abolition Movement (March 2019, W.W. Norton) introduces an unknown poster child whose photograph transformed the abolition movement. In addition to her academic work in photography, Jessie shoots professionally with the award winning team Morgan & Owens. She is originally from Monroe, Louisiana, and lives in the Hague.

About Girl in Black and White: The Story of Mary Mildred Williams and the Abolition Movement :

When a decades-long court battle resulted in her family's freedom in 1855, seven-year-old Mary Mildred Williams unexpectedly became the face of American slavery. During a sold-out abolitionist lecture series, Senator Charles Sumner paraded Mary in front of rapt audiences as evidence that slavery was not racially bound. Weaving together long-overlooked primary sources and arresting images, including those images that turned Mary into the poster child of a movement, Jessie Morgan-Owens investigates tangled generations of sexual enslavement and the fraught politics that led Mary to Sumner. She restores Mary’s story to history and uncovers a dramatic narrative of travels along the Underground Railroad, relationships tested by oppression, and the struggles of life after emancipation.

Education

• PhD New York University (2003 — 2009)
• BA Loyola University New Orleans (1995 — 1999)