I am a Professor and former Department Head in Geography, University of Tennessee. My interests are cultural and historical geography with a specific focus on landscapes of public memory, race, heritage tourism, race and social justice, critical place name studies, and politics of geographic mobility and travel. Much of my work focuses on the histories, memory-work, commemorative activism, and place-making efforts of African Americans as they assert and claim civil rights, their right to belong with public spaces, and the power to remember the past and shape the American landscape on their own terms. I am a devoted scholar-teacher who enjoys working and publishing with students, both at the undergraduate and graduate levels. I conduct critical public scholarship that engages, informs, and helps the news media, government officials, community activists and organizations, and the broader citizenry. I am founder of the RESET (Race, Ethnicity, and Social Equity in Tourism) Initiative, which analyzes and challenges the historical and contemporary inequalities that have characterized travel, tourism, and hospitality–with special attention to the African American freedom struggle and the southeastern US. My disciplinary service-leaderhip includes a term as President of the American Association of Geographers (AAG) (2017-18) and President of the Southeastern Division of the AAG and a former co-editor of the peer-reviewed journal Southeastern Geographer.