“I am committed to teaching and researching culturally responsive history, cultivating inclusive learning and research environments that enrich students’ educational experiences and encourage new forms of experiential learning, and building collaborative relationships between ‘town and gown.’”
“I believe students control their educational paths, however it is my goal to navigate them through accepting and conceptualizing history, which in turn charts a clearer path toward greater understanding.”
Raja Malikah Rahim serves as an Assistant Professor of African American history at Appalachian State University. A native of Richmond, Virginia, Rahim received her PhD in history from the University of Florida, following the completion of her B.A. and M.A. degrees in history from North Carolina Central University. As a social and cultural historian, she specializes in African American history, 20th century U.S. history, Sport history, and Oral history. She also focuses on Public history and Digital Humanities.
Dr. Rahim’s current research places Historically Black College and University (HBCU) sports at the center of the long Black freedom movement by chronicling the history of the Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association (CIAA) through the broader lens of Black college basketball. She examines how African Americans built an autonomous institution in opposition to racism and white supremacy and created an organizing tradition around college basketball in the 20th century to articulate and enact what she calls the “politics of Black athletic emancipation.” In the context of the CIAA and Black college basketball, the politics of Black athletic emancipation was an anti-racist, pro-freedom, agenda of real and imagined strategies for fostering a level playing field in sports and society. Broadly speaking, the politics of Black athletic freedom represented the political and cultural language and actions of African Americans who relied on themselves, their communities, and institutions to push for racial equality.
Her scholarship has been supported by several institutions, including the North Caroliniana Society’s Archie K. Davis Fellowship and Kenyon College, where she served as a 2020-2021 Marilyn Yarbrough Dissertation and Teaching Fellow.
You can connect with Dr. Rahim via Twitter: @RajaMalikahR.
Selected Courses
HIS 3350 African American History
HIS 3534 Black Experience in U.S. History through Sports
Publications
Co-authored “Race and Sport in the Florida Sun,” Phylon 56, no. 2 (Winter 2019): 59-81.
Title: Assistant Professor
Department: History
Email address: Email me
Phone: (828) 262-6024