Page 4 - Florida Sentinel 9-10-21

Feature
Tampa Native:
Religion And Slave Historian Publishes Book And Accepts Position At Stanford
BY MONIQUE STAMPS Sentinel Staff Writer
Dr. Alexis Wells- Oghoghomeh grew up in Tampa, the daughter of the prominent Andrews family. She and her sister grew up with strong Black role mod- els, in her family as well as in the village that helped raise her. Her mother, Kay An- drews is the Publisher of the Florida Sentinel-Bulletin.
As a member of acade- mia, Dr. Wells- Oghoghomeh has been steadily climbing the profes- sional ladder. September 2021 will be a banner month: Her highly anticipated book will be released and she starts her new position at Stanford University.
Dr. Wells-Oghog- homeh will be a professor in the Department of Religious Studies. Her areas of scholar- ship are religion, race, and gender in the 16th through 19th centuries. She was previ- ously on the faculty of Van- derbilt University, in Nashville, TN.
Dr. Wells-Oghog- homeh has always been in- terested in the lives of Black women. A graduate of Spel- man College in Atlanta, Dr.
Wells-Oghoghomeh says, “the Spelman experience en- courages its students to think about the world through the language, bodies, and cate- gories indigenous to Black women.”
While at Spelman, Dr. Wells-Oghoghomeh orig- inally wanted to be a lawyer, like her dad, Alfred. She had an epiphany right before her law school decision and decided to heed the calling to go to Divinity School at Emory University instead.
In Divinity School, Dr. Wells-Oghoghomeh states it was difficult not to think critically about how systems and historic narra- tives have shaped how Black women are understood, es- pecially in the realm of the Protestant religion, particu- larly Black protestants.
Spurned by the work she did in homeless and domes- tic abuse shelters, she be- lieved she could make a difference through the dis- semination of knowledge. The study of enslaved Black women was a natural pro- gression from the work with Black women from the 20th and 21st centuries.
Dr. Wells-Oghog- homeh’s Ph.D studies also
DR. ALEXIS WELLS- OGHOGHOMEH
at Emory led her to write,
The Souls of Womenfolk: The Religious Cultures of Enslaved Women in the Lower South.
The book is a scholarly work, yet is accessible to the every day reader. It is avail- able on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, the University of North Carolina Press, and other outlets. The book will be released on September 14, 2021.
Dr. Wells-Oghog- homeh explores maternity, sex, and the gendered roles of women during slavery, in- cluding the female-centered enslaved societies that shaped the religious con- sciousness of the oppressed community.
Dr. Wells-Oghog- homeh’s book shows how enslaved women’s beliefs, re- membrances, and practices from Africa were woven to- gether with their lives in America. Often neglected and omitted from religious studies, the book seeks to
start the inclusion of spiri- tual, enslaved women. reli- gious narrative.
Dr. Wells-Oghog- homeh and her husband, Akerho, a senior executive at Red Bull live in Los Ange- les with their 2 sons, Ek- wheri and Esezi.
PAGE 4-A FLORIDA SENTINEL BULLETIN PUBLISHED EVERY FRIDAY FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 2021