Profiles
Faculty and Staff Directory
Tikia K. Hamilton
Assistant Professor
Tikia K. Hamilton is an Assistant Professor of History at Loyola University Chicago. Her research and courses focus on African American History.
Dr. Hamilton holds a Ph.D. in History from Princeton University and a masters in African American Studies from Columbia University. She attended Dartmouth College for her undergraduate work, where she majored in History under a Mellon Fellowship. She has lengthy experience teaching at the secondary and undergraduate levels and working as an educational consultant.
Her first book, entitled Nothing Less Than Equality: The Battle Over Segregated Education in the Nation's Capital, chronicles the various campaigns African Americans waged to obtain equal resources under segregation in the federal city. Published by The University of Chicago Press, the book is scheduled for publication for March 2026.
Dr. Hamilton is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Gannon Center for Women and Leadership Faculty Fellowship Award to conduct preliminary research on her second book project. She also has been awarded the Spencer Fellowship from National Academy of Education, which helped her to complete her first book. She currently serves as the Programming Chair of the History Department and inaugurated the annual Black History Month event beginning in 2021. She is a lifetime member of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH) and was formerly an executive member of the Urban History Association (UHA). She worked as a consultant on the DC History Center's current exhibit Class Action: Education and Opportunity in the Nation's Capital (2025-2030). In 2025, she was also named as one of "Top 40 Women Making a Difference in Academe" by Diversity: Issues in Higher Education.
Dr. Hamilton has appeared on the PBS local affiliate WTTW-Chicago and CBS, and has been interviewed by several news outlets and podcasts, with articles also appearing in the Journal of African American History (JAAH) and Washington History. She delivered numerous public lectures on The Great Migration, Black Women’s History, and various other topics. A native of Chicago, Hamilton has travelled solo to over two dozen countries in Central and South America, Europe, Africa, and the Caribbean.
Research Interests
African American History, 20th Century U.S. History, African American Women’s History, U.S. Women’s History, the History of Education, Urban History
Courses Taught
- HIST 103 - American Pluralism
- HIST 300D - Topics: African American Women’s History
- HIST 300D - Topics: Race and Education
- HIST 380 – African American History
- HIST 461 - Readings in Twentieth Century American History
Publications/Research Listings
Books/Book Contributions
Nothing Less Than Equality: The Battle over Segregated Education in the Nation’s Capital (University of Chicago Press, 2026).
"Afterword,” Race and Racism in American Public Life by Johnnetta B. Cole (2019 Mercer Lectures), University of Virginia Press, 2020.
Essays
"The Great Migration in Historical Perspective," The Newberry Library Digital Collections for the Classroom (July 25, 2024).
“The Origins of Patriotic Songs and the History of Their Reception,” The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History (July, 2024).
“‘Votes for Women’: Race, Gender, and Individualism in the Age of Jim Crow,” 1890-1920. The Journal of African American History (Volume 108, Number 1 Winter 2023).
“The Cost of Integration: The Contentious Career of Garnet C. Wilkinson.” Washington History, Vol. 30, No. 1, 2018, pp. 50–60. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/90021506
Book Reviews
Review of An African American Dilemma: A History of School Integration and Civil Rights in the North by Zoe Burkholder. The American Historical Review (September 2023).
Review of American Dream Deferred: Black Federal Workers in Washington, D.C., 1941-1981 by Frederick Gooding, Jr. Washington History (forthcoming, Fall 2022).
Review of Transforming the Elite: Black Students and the Desegregation of Private Schools by Michelle Purdy. The Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth, vol. 13, no. 1, 2020, p. 169-171.
Review of Just Another Southern Town: Mary Church Terrell and the Struggle for Racial Justice in the Nation’s Capital by Joan Quigley. Washington History, vol. 29, no. 2, 2017, pp. 70–71.
Forthcoming
“Spelman College History” for the Historically Black Colleges and Universities Encyclopedia (University of North Carolina Press).
“The Mightiest of Weapons: Emma V. Brown, The National Capital’s First Black Educator,” The Cambridge History of Black Women in the United States, Volume 3 (Cambridge Press, 2026).