Tashae Smith is currently a senior majoring in History and minoring in Museum Studies at Manhattanville College in Purchase, New York. At Manhattanville she is a part of the Castle Scholars honor program and is on track to graduate in 2017 with honors in History. She was the 2015 Outstanding Sophomore and 2016 Outstanding Junior within the History Department. Ms. Smith was the Open Space Institute’s 2015 Barnabas McHenry Fellow for Historic Preservation. The McHenry fellowship supported her work in partnership with Sound & Story of the Hudson Valley, Inc., to create a self-guided African American historical walking tour in her hometown of Newburgh, New York. The tour, titled “In Washington’s Shadow,” presents important aspects of African American history in Newburgh which have been overshadowed by Washington’s Headquarters. In the future, she hopes to train at the graduate level in historical museum studies; her dream is to become a curator at the National Museum of African American History and Culture.

Link to press release of the African American history tour http://www.recordonline.com/news/20160827/walking-tour-explores-african-american-history-in-newburgh
Link to listen to the tour’s audio recordings http://www.soundandstory.org/directories/inwashingtonsshadow.html