James Leiker

Presentation: In the Words of Black Westerners: Memories and Memoirs of African Americans in the American West.
About James Leiker: A native of Hays, Kansas, James Leiker, Ph.D (History), taught at the University of Kansas. By March he will be teaching courses on race and ethnicity at St. Cloud State University in St. Cloud, Minnesota. He has also taught western civilization study abroad programs in Europe. He has a book coming out titled, "Racial Borders: Black Soldiers, Race and Nationalism along the Rio Grande" from Texas A & M University Press. His research interests have focused mostly on African Americans and race in the American West, with special emphasis on Blacks in Kansas. He have also published in Kansas History, Great Plains Quarterly, and the Western Historical Quarterly. His research on Micheaux and other black western writers is part of a larger work in progress concerning African Americans' autobiographies in western settlement.