Cassandra Newby-Alexander is an historian at Norfolk State University. She has contributed to several nationally-broadcast documentaries, including The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross, a PBS series presented by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Her many books, including Voices from within the Veil: African Americans and the Experience of Democracy, have expanded the intellectual discourse on the history of African Americans in Virginia.  

As Director of the Joseph Jenkins Roberts Center for the African Diaspora at Norfolk State, Professor Newby-Alexander works to make history accessible to the general public, including through a collaboration with the Norfolk Convention and Visitor’s Bureau to produce "Waterways to Freedom," an interactive website on the Underground Railroad. She also helps to plan American Evolution, the Commonwealth of Virginia-sponsored commission to commemorate the first arrival of enslaved Africans in the Virginia colony.