Zinga A. Fraser, PhD
Assistant Professor
Africana Studies Department and Women's & Gender Studies Program
Director of Shirley Chisholm Project
Dr. Zinga A. Fraser is an author, lecturer, historical consultant and philanthropist. She is the Director of the Shirley Chisholm Project on Brooklyn Women’s Activism. Dr. Fraser is currently an Assistant Professor in the Africana Studies and Women’s and Gender Studies at Brooklyn College. Dr. Fraser is a foremost expert on Shirley Chisholm and Black Congressional Women and Black feminist politics . She is currently completing her book manuscript titled, Sister Insider/ Sister Outsider: Shirley Chisholm and Barbara Jordan, Black Women’s Politics in the Post- Civil Rights Era. In addition to another forthcoming book under contract with the University of California Press on Shirley Chisholm’s intellectual legacy. She has appeared on local, national and international news outlets such as: The New York Times, Washington Post, Essence Magazine, Elle Magazine docuseries, Buzzfeed News, C-SPAN, The History Channel, BBC- Africa, NY1 and WNBC - TV, WABC - TV, WPIX - TV, USA Today, Chronicle of Higher Education, Associated Press, the Amsterdam News and National Public Radio.
She has published several works most recent essay in the Boston Review book: The Right To Be Elected: 100 Years Since Women’s Suffrage that explores Shirley Chisholm’s Democratic Legacy. Dr Fraser other works can be found in Souls: A Critical Journal of Black Politics, Culture, the Association of Black Women's Historians, Phillis: A Journal of African American Women's History and other publications. She is the recipient of the 2017-2018 AAUW American Association of University Women fellowship and the 2014 American Political Science Association Award in Minority and Urban Politics. She holds a doctorate in African American Studies from Northwestern University, and a Master’s of Arts from the Institute for Research in African American Studies at Columbia University and Undergraduate degree in Political Science and African American Studies from Temple University. Before entering academia, Dr. Fraser’s was a Legislative Assistant on Capitol Hill. She is currently a Sister Scholar for the Delta Research and Educational Foundation in Washington, DC. Her life abides by one of Shirley Chisholm’s most famous quotes. “Service is rent we pay for the privilege of living on this earth.”