Valerie Craigwell White

2026 Descendant Engagement Fellow

The Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience is pleased to welcome our first Descendant Engagement Fellow for the summer of 2026. Valerie Craigwell White comes to Maryland's Eastern Shore from the Pacific Northwest, where she has recently retired as the Ombuds and former Associate Dean at the Graduate School of Education and Counseling at Lewis & Clark College. White has over 40 years of experience in corporate and non-profit settings, including a position as vice president and division manager at a multi-billion-dollar regional organization. She is currently an organization and personal effectiveness consultant and speaker based in Portland, Oregon. Using a whole-systems perspective, she specializes in addressing strategic change and renewal through the lens of culture in complex settings.

Valerie Craigwell White is an enthusiastic champion of family history as American history. She has traced her own connection directly to the Custom House in Chestertown, MD, and the Ringgold Family who owned her family members. White has given talks on a range of subjects, most recently on early African Americans in historical settings for the National Park Service, national and regional museums, universities, conferences, and community groups. She collaborated closely with Independence National Historical Park and Martha’s Vineyard Museum on exhibit design and context. Her scholarship and thought leadership will deepen the impact of Washington College as the inaugural higher education institution invited to contribute to the National Trust for Historic Preservation Descendant and Family Stewardship Initiative.

In 2023, after years of historical research exploring her own family ancestry, White contacted the U.S. National Park Service with a proposal for the federal Underground Railroad Network to Freedom program. The result was an exhibit, Freedom on Trial, at the Liberty Bell Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Her intuition to share her personal story led to an educational exhibit that addressed the local resistance to the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, including her recovery of ancestral agency.

While growing up in Massachusetts, White heard stories about her great-great-grandparents: Reverend William Jackson and Jane Jackson. Reverend Jackson, a Baptist minister on the East Coast, was a Black abolitionist and a US Army Regiment Chaplain and officer during the Civil War. In 1850, he led community members on a rescue mission where the US Marshal, based in Independence Hall, was charged with directly opposing such efforts. The mission ultimately proved successful, but Jackson was arrested, charged with kidnapping, and briefly jailed—a price he was willing to pay for the freedom of another.

Her own experience growing up in a house that was integral to the Underground Railroad led White to investigate historical records. She navigated archives for primary sources and found that her ancestors did, indeed, appear in government-generated documents as well as in oral tradition and preserved material culture. When Reverend Jackson would have turned 200, White traveled to his hometown of Bedford, Massachusetts, to recognize his birthday as Reverend William Jackson Day, as declared by the mayor following White's request.

In recognition of her work, White was presented with a working key to Independence Hall. Since then, she has been featured in exhibit videos detailing her research methods, this story journey, and its larger impact. Her sustained passion for connecting genealogical dots across centuries, humanizing the formerly enslaved as sources of ingenuity, and grounding contemporary realities within the context of full historical arcs is an authentic and exemplary embodiment of lifelong learning and archival discovery.

White’s curious and tenacious approach to research centers the story on people, place, and events.  She cherishes identifying a thread, asking thoughtful questions, and weaving previously obscure narratives into accessible chronology for diverse audiences.  As the Descendant Engagement Fellow, she will be working with Starr Center staff and the Chesapeake Heartland: An African American Humanities Project to address broken ties and reclaim space on behalf of the many known and unknown people enslaved by the vast Ringgold network across generations, a small step towards amplifying their presence, contributions, and dignity. White has received a warm embrace and looks forward to meeting folks throughout the region in hopes of supporting others curious about their family roots.