By Nikia Burdick
Christmaelle Vernet, a sophomore Journalism and Legal Studies double major, has received the SBS LeBovidge Undergraduate Research Award for fall 2023. The award was established by Carol and Alan LeBovidge, to provide merit-based awards to support an undergraduate student working as a research assistant with a UMass Amherst faculty member in the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences.
“I am extremely honored to receive the Lebovidge Undergraduate Research Award, and I am excited to combine all my passions through this research," said Vernet.
The SBS LeBovidge Undergraduate Research Award will fund Vernet's research on two massacres of Black Americans during World War I: the East St. Louis Massacre in Illinois (1917) and the Elaine Massacre in Arkansas (1919). Her research will explore the role of the Black press in exposing the truth and its efforts to free the Black men falsely charged with insurrection and the role of the white local press in fabricating a cover-up and disinformation campaign that spread to newspapers across the country.
"This opportunity will help me with my academic and career goals by allowing me to research and report on subjects that interest me and that I believe deserve more attention," said Vernet.
In addition to her research, Vernet serves as the Editor-in-Chief of the Rebirth Project, a student-run digital publication dedicated to highlighting the voices of marginalized students at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. This includes students of different ethical backgrounds, sexuality, gender identities, social classes, and interests.
Vernet is also a columnist for the Daily Collegian and a part of the Haitian American Student Association e-board.
Vernet will work over the fall semester to co-author a piece with Professor Kathy Roberts Forde on these two tragic events for the Washington Post’s Made by History section. Their research will inform Forde's current book project on racial massacres and the press.