Crystal Fleming

Crystal Fleming is a critical race sociologist and scholar of antiracism whose work explores black feminist and Africana perspectives on racial justice, collective memory and spirituality. She is the author and editor of four books including Resurrecting Slavery: Racial Legacies and White Supremacy in France (Temple University Press, 2017); the critically acclaimed How to Be Less Stupid About Race: On Racism, White Supremacy and the Racial Divide (Beacon Press, 2018) and her young adult debut RISE UP! How You Can Join the Fight Against White Supremacy (Henry Holt for Young Readers, 2021). Most recently, she is the co-editor of Beyond White Mindfulness: Critical Perspectives on Racism, Wellbeing and Liberation (2022 Routledge). Her scholarship also appears in journals such as Social Problems, The Sociology of Race and Ethnicity, Ethnic and Racial Studies, Poetics and The Du Bois Review. She received the American Political Science Association’s Georges-Lavau award for the best dissertation on French politics; the Ford Foundation Predoctoral Fellowship and the Woodrow Wilson Career Enhancement Fellowship among other honors. Fleming earned a Ph.D. and a master’s degree in sociology from Harvard University and graduated magna cum laude in French and sociology with honors from Wellesley College. Before joining the faculty at Smith, she served as professor of sociology at SUNY Stony Brook and held affiliations in Africana studies as well as women’s, gender and sexuality studies. Fleming has held numerous leadership positions, including being an elected member of council for the American Sociological Association and an external board member of the Mindfulness Center at Brown University. 

Fleming is currently completing a book on social justice for Beacon Press and is undertaking an ethnographic study of Black life, leisure and placemaking in Provincetown, Massachusetts. In addition to her scholarship, she is an experienced faculty development leader with expertise in fostering antiracist pedagogy and teaches a variety of courses at Smith including Introduction to Black Women’s Studies, Black Magic: Africana Encounters with the Paranormal and Black Europe.