Dr. Banks is a historian of African American Transnationalism, U.S. Women’s, and Modern Germany. She earned a dual BA in Sociology and German Studies from CSU Long Beach, and holds a MA and PhD in History from the University of Iowa. Dr. Banks also attended high school and college in Germany as an international student. She was born and raised in Long Beach, and graduated from Long Beach Polytechnic High School (Go Jackrabbits!). Before joining LBCC’s History Department, Dr. Banks taught at VVC, Mt. Sac, U of Iowa, and Lb-T Languages in Munich, Germany.

Dr. Banks’s research focuses on the international activism and networks of African American feminists during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In 2019, Dr. Banks was awarded the Obama Dissertation Prize in Transnational American Studies. She is also the recipient of a U.S. Fulbright Award and Fellowship from the German Historical Institute in Washington D.C. In 2018, Dr. Banks was selected as an Atlantik-Brücke German-American Young Leader.

“I became a historian because I wanted to play a role in correcting and creating a more accurate historical record of the African American experience. My sole purpose in teaching is to empower every student to critically analyze the past, question who is missing and why, and then to go find the answer(s).” – Noaquia Callahan Banks