Jeffrey T Sammons He/Him

Jeffrey T. Sammons is a professor emeritus of history at New York University, where he taught from 1989 to 2022.  He earned his B.A. in history from Rutgers College where he was graduated magna cum laude and elected to Phi Beta Kappa in 1971.  He earned a Masters’ degree in history from Tufts University in 1974 and earned a PhD in American History from the University of North Carolina in 1982.  From there, he took a position as an Assistant Professor of History at the University of Houston.  In 1987, Sammons was named a Henry Rutgers Research Fellow and director of African-American Studies at Rutgers University-Camden and completed Beyond the Ring: The Role of Boxing in American Society.  

In 2001 Sammons was awarded a scholar-in-residence fellowship by the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture and History and soon after received a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship for 2002-2003 in support of Harlem’s Rattlers and the Great War: The Undaunted 369th Regiment and the Quest for African American Equality (with John H. Morrow, Jr., University Press of Kansas, April 2014).  He was also an historical adviser to the World War I Centennial Commission and a member of its Medal Review Task Force Steering Committee.  He has also advised the Medal of Honor Museum on scholarly matters.  He is currently a consultant on the Memorial Groves Project in Houston, TX and the so-called Camp Logan Mutiny.  In addition, Sammons collaborated with the Department of Community and Cultural Affairs of the Government of Bermuda on a film project centered around Louis Rafael Corbin on the history of golf and race in Bermuda, the United States, and Canada.  He is currently writing a book on that same subject.  Sammons was also a member of the Museum and Library Committee and a founder of its black golf archive project.     

Sammons also has served as President and Secretary of the Beta Chapter of Phi Beta Kappa at NYU and was a National Senator of the Phi Beta Kappa Society.  He has been on the editorial boards of The Journal of Sport History and Sport and Social Issues.   He also has taught at Princeton University and at Hollins University (Roanoke, Va.) as a Jessie Ball DuPont Scholar.