Sheila D. Collins

Sheila D. Collins is a professor emeritus of political science and a public intellectual who has authored seven books and numerous book chapters, articles and encyclopedia entries on American politics and public policy, social movements, and religion. Among her most recent books are: Ubuntu: George M. Houser and the Struggle for Peace and Freedom on Two Continents, Ohio University Press, 2020; and When Government Helped: Learning from the Successes and Failures of the New Deal, Oxford University Press (co-authored and edited with Gertrude Goldberg). Her blogs have appeared on Truthout, Huffington Post, Oxford University Press, New Politics and Religion Dispatches. She has lectured on these subjects both in the U.S. and abroad. She has completed work on her eighth book to be titled, "White Conspiracy in the Mississippi Delta: The Trials and Triumph of Eddie James Carthan" a dramatic story about a young Black mayor in the Mississippi Delta who was railroaded out of office by the white power structure and framed on four charges, one of which was capital murder. The story has implications that reach far beyond the poverty-stricken Mississippi Delta to the highest levels of the federal government and to the national headquarters of a major Protestant denomination. It is a story about this country's continuing problem with its "original sin" and has deep relevance for today.