AAHRC

With years of experience coordinating African American public history and cultural heritage programs and projects, Dr. Brandon A. Owens, Sr. founded AAHRC – African American Historical Research and Consulting, LLC. He is responsible for the overall leadership and strategic plan of the company.

 

Dr. Owens has almost a decade of experience in various capacities at libraries, archives, and museums at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) throughout the country. He currently serves as Provost and Vice President of Academic Affairs at Wilberforce University in Wilberforce, Ohio. As the first private, black-owned and operated historically black university in the United States, Wilberforce University has a rich and remarkable history of African American education, religious life, and cultural development. 

 

Before joining the Executive Leadership Team at Wilberforce University, Dr. Owens was an associate professor, director of the J. F. Drake Memorial Learning Resources Center, and director of the State Black Archives Research Center & Museum at Alabama A&M University in Normal, Alabama. Prior to Alabama A&M University, Dr. Owens served as acting provost and vice president for academic affairs, associate provost and associate vice president for academic affairs, dean of the John Hope and Aurelia E. Franklin Library, and assistant professor of history at Fisk University, where he implemented several technological advancements to support the strategic mission of the University.

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During his tenure at Fisk, Dr. Owens secured over $2.5 million in grants and contracts to support historic preservation of buildings, historical exhibits, digitization, and public access to archival materials. He also played a key role in the successful reaffirmation of its accreditation from the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges (SACSCOC) in December 2022.

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Prior to Fisk, Owens served as the access services/cultural heritage manager for the Levi Watkins Learning Center at Alabama State University. In this role, he managed the National Center for the Study of Civil Rights and African-American Culture; helped coordinate construction for the $5 million interpretive center on the Selma to Montgomery National Historic Trail; and assisted in the preservation, restoration, and interpretation of two historic house museums on campus--the home of civil rights leader Rev. Ralph D. Abernathy and the birth-home of world-renowned singer Nat King Cole. In addition, Dr. Owens was director of tourism for Dexter Avenue King Memorial Baptist Church and Parsonage Museum in Montgomery, Alabama, the only church where Martin Luther King, Jr. pastored, and his home that was bombed by segregationists in retaliation for the success of the Montgomery Bus Boycott.

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Dr. Owens has served on the Board of Directors for the Alabama Historical Association, the Black Heritage Council of the Alabama Historical Commission, and the Executive Board of the Tennessee Library Association. He most recently served as a member of the Board of Directors for Nashville’s Metro Historical Commission Foundation, the Nashville City Cemetery Association, and the first African American President-Elect of the Tennessee State Library and Archives Friends.

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Dr. Owens holds a B.A. in history from Fisk University, an M.A. in history from Alabama State University, a master's degree in library science (MLS) and a Ph.D. in public history from Middle Tennessee State University.