Areas of Specialization
*African-American History since 1865
*Internal Migration
*Race Relations and Ethnicity
*African-American Studies
Detroit, Michigan, native, Bernadette Pruitt, has been a member of the history department since 1996. The passionate and energetic young scholar completed her Ph.D. in May 2001. She is the first African-American woman to earn a doctorate in history at the University of Houston. Her dissertation, “For the Advancement of the Race: African-American Migration and Community Building in Houston, 1914-1945,” examined the movement of black people into Texas’ largest metropolitan center from surrounding farms and small towns in eastern Texas and Louisiana. Dr. Pruitt’s project is the first scholarly attempt since the modern Civil Rights Movement to singularly address the significance of the Great Migration in Texas. Her work stands as a pivotal study in the historiography of black urban history. Professor Pruitt is a past recipient of the University of Houston African-American Studies Graduate Fellowship, and Organization of American Historians Nathan Huggiins-Benjamin Quarles Award. Pruitt completed her M.A. and B.A. degrees at Texas Southern University in Houston. Her current research endeavors include black population patterns in southeast Texas and southern Louisiana, the development of black Creole and Creoles of Color communities in the Upper Texas Gulf Coast industrial region, and community development among Houston African Americans during the first half of the century.