Dr. Roberta Ann Dunbar
14 February 1938 – 6 July 2010
(Edited from the memorial comments of Barbara Anderson,
the “History of SERSAS” by Joe Miller, and Dr. Roberta Ann Dunbar’s obituary.)
Africanist and SERSASian that she was, in the months and days before her death, Roberta Ann Dunbar was determined and involved in sending her library of books on women in Africa, Niger, and Islamic/African family law to a new Women's Center in Niger. The books were cataloged and boxed the week before her death and shipped in the days following. Ann (as she was known by her friends and colleagues) hoped that this library would be a resource for the many women in Niger who held her great respect, and she hoped that her gift might be a model for other colleagues considering what to do with their personal libraries upon retirement.
Roberta Ann Dunbar born in Clarksburg, West Virginia. Ann graduated from Wellesley College in 1960 with a bachelor's degree in history. She attended graduate school at UCLA, receiving her master's degree in 1964 followed by her Ph.D. in 1970, both in History. Ann worked at the George School in Philadelphia, performed fieldwork in Niger and Senegal in West Africa, and taught Hausa language to Peace Corps volunteers.
Coming to UNC-Chapel Hill in 1969, Ann taught in the History Department, and joined the African and Afro-American Studies Curriculum in 1974. She co-chaired that curriculum for 10 years, and then developed courses laying the groundwork for the Department established in the 1980s. Teaching in African literature, art, and comparative studies in global culture and gender, Ann also espoused the "service-learning'' movement in the 1990s and taught participatory development courses in that field.
Shortly after arriving at Chapel Hill, Ann and her Africanist colleagues began to discuss creating a loosely associated group of Africanists in the Southeast. Their collective efforts helped inspire Rutledge Dennis (Sociology, Virginia Commonwealth University) and Joseph C. Miller (History, University of Virginia) to propose a "Southeastern Regional Seminar" on "Approaches to Social and Economic Change in Sub-Saharan Africa" in June 1973 to the Social Science Research Council. SERSAS, as it eventually became called, was approved by the SSRC later that year.
As a member of SERSAS’s founding core group, Ann had supported the application to the SSRC and arranged not only for UNC-Chapel Hill sponsorship but also its hosting of SERSAS at the close of its first year in the spring of 1974. The conference theme was the discussion of Walter Rodney's How Europe Underdeveloped Africa. She later helped arrange SERSAS conferences at UNC-Chapel Hill in 1977, 1978, and 1980. From 1985 to 1987 Ann served as a coordinator of SERSAS. Robeta Ann Dunbar was instrumental in shaping the character of SERSAS to reflect mutual support, empathy, scholarship, and all matters African until she retired.
Ann Dunbar’s research interests were in twentieth and twenty-first-century social history of West African Muslim areas, focusing on law and political movements as they have been influenced and shaped by women. Continuing education and department programs led to travel and in some cases residence in Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia, Eritrea, and South Africa. At home, Ann's long involvement with the Dispute Settlement Center of Orange County paralleled her intellectual interest in social justice.
Throughout her academic career Ann's tireless mentoring of countless students not only helped guide them to productive lives but also created a rich network of progressive colleagues both in Africa and domestically. SERSAS thrived in part because of her strong support. Professor Roberta Ann Dunbar retired in 2009 as the longest serving faculty member in UNC-Chapel Hill’s Department of African & Afro-American Studies.