Henry Lewis Suggs is professor emeritus of American history at Clemson University. His academic concentrations are the American South, African American history, and African American journalism.
Dr. Suggs earned his Ph.D. in American history from the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, Virginia in 1976. At Virginia, he was awarded the Martin Luther King, Jr. Woodrow Wilson Fellowship. His first teaching assignment was at Western Carolina University, Cullowhee, North Carolina. He was WCU's first African American faculty member. An academic scholarship was later named in his honor. He taught at Howard University, Washington, D.C., for a number of years, and was selected for the faculty of Clemson University in Clemson, South Carolina, in August 1983.
In the late 1980s, Dr. Suggs became the first African American to serve as an intern at the Historical Office of the Office of the Secretary of Defense at the Pentagon.
In 1992 he became the second African American faculty member at Clemson to be promoted to the rank of full professor.
At Clemson, Dr. Suggs taught American history, the American South, and African American history. In February 1994, he was selected as the first Dupont Endowed Visiting Chair at Lynchburg College in Lynchburg, Virginia. Also during his career at Clemson, he was selected for a twelve-week summer fellowship at the University of Kansas in Lawrence, Kansas. In 1997 he was selected as a W.E.B. Du Bois Scholar at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. While at Harvard, he also taught a class in African American history at nearby Brandeis University.
Dr. Suggs retired as Professor Emeritus of American History from Clemson University in 2003.
In August 2003, Chancellor James H. Ammons of North Carolina Central University in Durham, North Carolina, appointed Dr. Suggs scholar in residence at NCCU. His assigned duty was to write the history of NCCU.
Dr. Suggs has edited and authored numerous books on African American journalism, and his scholarly articles have appeared in journals such as The Harvard University Business Review, The Journal of Southern History, The American Historical Review, The Journal of Negro History, The Virginia Historical Review, and many others.
