Rachel L. Swarns

Director, Hidden Legacies

Rachel Swarns is an associate professor of journalism and the director of  Hidden Legacies: Slavery, Race and the Making of 21st Century America, an initiative of the Arthur L. Carter Institute of Journalism at New York University. The project brings journalists, scholars, students and communities together to promote and produce research and reporting that illuminates the experiences of people of color in the United States. Swarns is the author of The 272: The Families Who Were Enslaved and Sold to Build the American Catholic Church (Random House, 2023); American Tapestry: The Story of the Black, White and Multiracial Ancestors of Michelle Obama (Amistad/Harper Collins, 2012) and a co-author of Unseen: Unpublished Black History from the New York Times Photo Archives (Black Dog & Leventhal, 2017.) In 2023, she was elected to the Society of American Historians. In 2024, she was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Amanda Coopersmith

Researcher and Project Coordinator

Amanda Coopersmith is a techie-turned-journalist thinking critically about the intersection of tech and social issues. She holds a Master’s Degree from NYU Journalism in Cultural Reporting and Criticism and a B.S. in Product Design from Stanford University.

Fajr Baig

Undergraduate research assistant