When it comes to racial justice, Shannon Eaves (pictured) doesn’t just talk the talk – she walks the walk. All over the College of Charleston campus.
That is why the College of Charleston history professor is being honored with the Black History Intercollegiate Consortium’s 2025 Martin Luther King Jr. Humanitarian Award.
A specialist in 19th-century U.S. history, African American history, and slavery and gender in the antebellum South, Eaves is the author of Sexual Violence and American Slavery: The Making of a Rape Culture in the Antebellum South (UNC Press, 2024), which examines how the rape and sexual exploitation of enslaved women created a rape culture that was woven into the very fabric of antebellum society, influencing daily life for both the enslaved and enslavers.
“As impressive and significant as her research is to understanding and reckoning with America’s racial and gender past, Dr. Eaves’ impact extends beyond traditional academic knowledge sources,” Antron Mahoney, assistant professor of African American studies, says in his nomination of Eaves for the award. “She has worked just as hard to employ those same principles of equity and justice that guide her research, to the work she has done in the CofC and Charleston community.”
Indeed, Eaves was instrumental in launching the Department of History’s Black History Month lecture series as well as in developing the College’s Center for the Study of Slavery in Charleston, helping to craft the center’s mission statement and creating its organizational infrastructure. She was also an active and vocal member of the College’s Historical Review Taskforce and is a member of the resulting Committee for Commemoration and Landscapes.
“Dr. Eaves’ work as a historian and public practitioner embodies a commitment to racial justice,” Mahoney’s nomination continues. “Since becoming a faculty member at CofC, she has exemplified a commitment to raising consciousness and fostering sustainable change towards a more equitable campus and Charleston community.”
Together with her dedication to mentoring and supporting Black junior faculty at the College, that commitment is what makes Eaves the perfect candidate for the MLK Jr. Humanitarian Award, which the BHIC bestows every year on someone from each of its five member institutions – the College of Charleston, the Medical University of South Carolina, The Citadel, Trident Technical College and Charleston Southern University – who embodies the ideals of Martin Luther King Jr.
“It is due time for Dr. Eaves to receive an award for her ongoing labor to make CofC a more welcoming and equitable institution,” says Ashley Dennis, assistant professor of history, who also nominated Eaves for the award. “If MLK Jr. was still with us, I believe he would be honored to have the MLK Jr. Humanitarian Award bestowed on such a selfless and pathbreaking woman.”
Past award recipients from the College of Charleston include Lauren Herterich (2024), Kids On Point executive director; Joy Vandervort-Cobb (2023), associate professor emerita of theatre and dance; and Rochelle Johnson (2022), director of the Office of Multicultural Student Programs and Services, among others.
“I am honored to receive the BHIC’s 2025 Martin Luther King Jr. Humanitarian Award for the College of Charleston,” says Eaves. “I believe that to whom much is given, much is required. I hope my scholarly endeavors and service to the College of Charleston and the greater Charleston community reflect that. I look forward to sharing the honor with my parents who modeled the importance of service to others.”
Eaves will be presented with the award at the BHIC’s annual Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration on Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2025, 6:30–8 p.m., in the MUSC Drug Discovery Building auditorium (70 President St.). The celebration will include a performance by the CofC Gospel Choir, and senior political science major Tyler Gadson will share student reflections on the program’s theme, “Mission Possible: Protecting Freedom, Justice and Democracy in the Spirit of Nonviolence.”
