Sherry Sherrod DuPree Collection

Sherry Sherrod DuPree (b. 1946) is a writer/researcher and retired librarian and teacher specializing in religious studies and African American history. Her career encompasses 10 years as project director with the Institute of Black Culture, University of Florida, service in the UF Libraries as a specialist for religion and African American history, and 30 years as librarian and professor at Santa Fe College (1983-2013). She holds an MA in educational media from North Carolina Central University and an AMLS in academic librarianship from the University of Michigan. DuPree is married to Herbert Clarence DuPree, an educator, mathematics teacher, and retired principal for the Marion County school system, and is the mother of three sons, Amil, Andre, and Andrew.

DuPree is an expert on Gospel music and on the history of Pentecostalism. She is the author of a major biography on Bishop Charles Harrison Mason, founder of the Church of God in Christ. DuPree became a member of the Church of God in Christ in 1981 and was appointed to the Historical Archive committee in 1988. She has served as editor for the Society of Pentecostal Studies (SPS) academic journal, Pneuma and became the first African American woman president of SPS. Her extensive collections on Pentecostalism are housed at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, the Smithsonian, the Library of Congress, and the University of Southern California Libraries. For her work in this area she has been recognized by the House of God, Marion Count, and the Society for Pentecostal Studies, and received the Woman of Spirit Award from the William Seymour Educational Foundation.

A noted writer and speaker on African American history, DuPree has conducted extensive research into the history of Rosewood, Florida, the African American community that was targeted by a white mob in 1923 in one of Florida’s worst mass-hate crimes. Black residents had to flee the area as the mob put their houses to the torch, with at least eight dead. Rosewood was never reestablished. DuPree regularly conducts lectures and educational tours to teach the town’s legacy. She also has served on the State of Florida African American Task Force for 16 years and on the Historical Marker Board as a reader of African American markers for over 20 years.

DuPree has curated, designed, and opened numerous exhibitions and conferences, notably, the African American Gospel Music Traveling exhibit and The Rosewood Exhibit entitled: The Beginning that Never Ends. She created the website A Road Map to African American and Diversity Resources to provide a master list of accessible sources for scholastic and amateur research. Her experience with education and information sciences led her to write and publish the book Displays for Schools to provide useful and instructive materials for teachers and their students. Dupree has been recognized for her work in historical preservation within Florida’s African American community by numerous organizations, including the Pleasant Street Historic Society and Pasco County Historical Society.