Crystal R. Sanders is an award-winning historian of the United States in the twentieth century. Her research and teaching interests include African American History, Black Women's History, Civil Rights History, and the History of Black Education. She received her BA (cum laude) in History and Public Policy from Duke University and a Ph.D. in History from Northwestern University. Before coming to Emory, she was an Associate Professor of History at Pennsylvania State University. Professor Sanders is the author of A Chance for Change: Head Start and Mississippi's Black Freedom Struggle, published by the University of North Carolina Press in 2016 and A Forgotten Migration: Black Southerners, Segregation Scholarships, and the Debt Owed to Public HBCUs, published by the University of North Carolina Press in 2024. A Chance for Change won the 2017 Critics' Choice Award from the American Educational Studies Association and the 2017 New Scholar's Book Award from Division F of the American Educational Research Association. A Chance for Change was also a finalist for the 2016 Hooks National Book Award. Professor Sanders’ work can also be found in many of the leading history journals, including the Journal of Southern History, the North Carolina Historical Review, and the Journal of African American History. Professor Sanders is the recipient of a host of fellowships and prizes. These honors include the C. Vann Woodward Prize from the Southern Historical Association, the Huggins-Quarles Award from the Organization of American Historians, an Andrew Mellon Graduate Fellowship in Humanistic Studies, a Ford Foundation Dissertation Fellowship, a National Academy of Education/Spencer Foundation Dissertation Fellowship, a National Academy of Education/Spencer Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship, a Visiting Scholars Fellowship at the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the Anthony Kaye Fellowship at the National Humanities Center. In 2021, the American Historical Association awarded her its Equity Award. Professor Sanders currently serves on the Executive Council of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH) and as the Assistant Editor of the Journal of African American History.