The 2027 MLK Breakfast Keynote Speaker

Dr. Elizabeth Hordge-Freeman is an Associate Professor of Sociology with a joint appointment in the Center for African and African American Studies at Rice University, where she also serves as Associate Chair of Sociology and Magister of Wiess College. A fourth-generation Tampa native, she is an internationally recognized scholar whose research focuses on racism, anti-Blackness, inequality, families, and the sociology of emotions in the United States and across the African Diaspora.

Her transnational scholarship draws on research conducted in English, Spanish, and Portuguese. She earned her B.A. from Cornell University and her M.A. and Ph.D. in Sociology from Duke University. Dr. Hordge-Freeman is the award-winning author of The Color of Love: Racial Features, Stigma, and Socialization in Black Brazilian Families and Second-Class Daughters: Black Brazilian Women and Informal Adoption as Modern Slavery, as well as co-editor of two additional volumes on race, Blackness, and the African Diaspora. Her scholarship has received numerous national and international honors, including the American Sociological Association’s Gordon Hirabayashi Human Rights Book Award, Outstanding Publication Award from the Sociology of Emotions Section, Distinguished Scholarship Award from the Race, Gender, and Class Section, and the Brazilian Studies Association’s Roberto Reis Book Prize.

A former Fulbright Scholar, she has also led study-abroad programs for students and faculty focused on Afro-Brazilian culture in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil. Prior to joining Rice, Dr. Hordge-Freeman spent twelve years on the faculty at the University of South Florida, where she held several senior leadership roles, including Senior Advisor to the President and Provost for Diversity and Inclusion, Interim Vice President for Institutional Equity, and founding Chair of the Racial Justice Initiative.

In 2020, she developed and led USF’s Anti-racism Initiative, a university-wide effort advancing research, education, and community engagement focused on racial justice. She later helped secure a transformative $1 million private gift to establish the Racial Justice Initiative housed in USF’s Institute on Black Life. Deeply committed to public sociology, Dr. Hordge-Freeman extends her work through community engagement, art, and film. With her husband, artist and scholar McArthur Freeman, she co-created Imagine Blackness, an art initiative and exhibition exploring Blackness, racial healing, and collective dreaming.

She is also executive producer and co-director of the award-winning documentary Journey Towards Justice, which grew from an experiential Civil Rights course she co-created at USF. She later launched Journey Towards Justice at Rice University, where the popular course is now approaching its third year. She currently leads Just Speak Out, a national community-engaged research initiative examining racism and racial bullying in schools.

Dr. Hordge-Freeman’s contributions have been recognized nationally and internationally, but among her most meaningful honors are those from her hometown of Tampa, including being named a 2023 Honoree of Distinction by the City of Tampa Black History Committee.

She is a member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. and the Athena Society. Throughout her career, she has remained committed to connecting rigorous scholarship, education, institutional leadership, and community engagement in the pursuit of racial justice. She currently resides in Houston with her husband, McArthur, and their two children, Nathaniel and Janelle.