User:Tmfrankl/Janice Sumler Edmond

Janice Sumler-Edmond is an accomplished author, professor and attorney. As an authority on U.S., African-American, and Constitutional History, Professor Sumler-Edmond has penned several articles, and, most recently, a book,  “The Secret Trust of Aspasia Cruvellier Mirault: The Life and Trials of a Free Woman of Color in Antebellum Georgia .”  Sumler-Edmond also co-edited “Black Women’s History at the Intersection of Knowledge and Power” and “Freedom’s Odyssey, African American History Essays from Phylon.”

Professor Sumler-Edmond currently teaches United States History at Huston-Tillotson University in Austin, Texas. She also serves as the university’s W.E.B. DuBois Honors Program director. Previously, she taught history at Clark Atlanta University and served as the chair of the history department and as an associate dean in the College of Arts and Sciences.

In addition to a distinguished career as a college professor, Sumler-Edmond has also enjoyed a long career in the field of law. With her legal career still in its infancy, Sumler-Edmond broke barriers as the first African-American woman to serve as a Judicial Fellow at the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, DC. As a practicing attorney, Professor Sumler-Edmond worked as an associate with the prestigious Atlanta law firm of Mack and McLean, now known as McGuire, Woods, Battle & Boothe LLP, where she specialized in labor, employment, and school law.

Professor Sumler-Edmond is a University of California, Los Angeles, graduate with a bachelor’s and master’s degree in History from the institution. After obtaining her Ph.D. in American History from Georgetown University, Sumler-Edmond returned to UCLA, where she earned her law degree from its School of Law. In addition to being licensed to practice law in Georgia and California, Sumler-Edmond is a member of the bar of the Supreme Court of the United States. She also holds memberships with the American Bar Association, Organization of American Historians, the Southern Historical Association, and the Association for the Study of African American Life and History. Professor Sumler-Edmond is a life member and former national director of the Association of Black Women Historians.

She currently resides near Austin, Texas, with her husband Dr. Steven Edmond, who is the dean of the School of Business at Huston-Tillotson University. Professor Sumler-Edmond hails from Vauxhall, N.J., and has a sister, Dr. Marilyn S. Jackson, an educator.