Robert E. Weems, Jr.

Professor
Ph.D., University of Wisconsin-Madison
area: African American history
office: 114 Read Hall
phone: 573-882-9471
email: weemsr@missouri.edu

B.A. Western Illinois University, 1973
M.A. Boston University (Afro-American Studies), 1975
M.A. University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (history), 1982
Ph.D. University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1987.

Professor Robert E. Weems, Jr.'s areas of academic specialization are African American History, African American Business and Economic History, African American Studies, and United States History.

At the University of Missouri-Columbia, he teaches the survey of African American history, an upper division course on African Americans in the twentieth-century, a graduate level research seminar in African American history, and a graduate level readings course on African American business and economic history. In 2001, Professor Weems, along with Professor Emeritus Arvarh E. Strickland, made an important contribution to national instruction in African American history with the publication (by Greenwood Publishers) of their well-received co-edited reference book: The African American Experience: An Historiographical and Bibliographical Guide.

Professor Weems is one of the nation's leading experts in the field of African American business and economic history. His books in this area are: Black Business in the Black Metropolis: The Chicago Metropolitan Assurance Company, 1925-1985 (published in 1996 by Indiana University Press); Desegregating the Dollar: African American Consumerism in the Twentieth Century (published by New York University Press in 1998); and Business in Black and White: American Presidents and Black Entrepreneurs in the Twentieth Century (published by New York University Press in 2009). For a more complete listing of his published works in field of African American business and economic history, see Selected Publications (in Word). For a listing of some of his numerous speaking engagements related to African American business and economic history, see Selected Presentations (in Word).

His current project is a biography of the noted African American entrepreneur, Anthony Overton. The Harvard Business School’s “Database of 20th Century Great American Business Leaders” cites Overton as the first black to preside over a major business conglomerate.

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Professor Weems

book jacket
The African American Experience

Black Business in the Black Metropolis

Desegregating the Dollar

Business in Black and White