About

Karen Sieber is a historian, educator, and leader in the museum studies, public humanities and digital humanities fields. As a scholar, her award-winning research on social justice history, labor history, and Black history has reached millions and is used in classrooms around the world. Trained in nonprofit management and strategic planning, with a background in higher education and humanities leadership, she helps institutions find innovative ways of engaging diverse audiences and meeting their missions.

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Sieber’s research has been featured by the American Historical Association, the National Council for Public History, Jacobin, PBS, The Conversation, Black Past, Smithsonian magazine, and the CBS documentary special “Tulsa 1921: An American Tragedy,” as well as numerous academic journals. She is best known as the creator of Visualizing the Red Summer, a comprehensive data map, archive and classroom resource on the Red Summer of 1919. The site is part of the core curriculum in AP African American Studies, and is a featured resource of the National Archives, Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History,  National History Day, National Council on Public History, and American Historical Association among others. She has consulted as a researcher for television shows and media outlets, and has curated numerous museum exhibits nationwide, including “H is For Hayti” about the thriving Black community in Durham, North Carolina, largely destroyed during urban renewal. 

Sieber is currently leading a multi-state initiative to study the Black freedom movement in the Midwest, stemming from her recent discovery that noted Underground Railroad leader Moses Dickson was active in Minnesota during what were supposedly his most prolific years leading people to freedom, not further down river as previously assumed. Explore more at: https://findingmoses.org/