Eola Lewis Dance

Eola Lewis Dance has worked at the intersection of history, art, and culture for 21 years having served most recently as the first African American woman named Superintendent of Fort Monroe National Monument and Director of Resource Stewardship and Science at Jamestown and Yorktown; three key sites in telling the history of the making of America. Eola is an interdisciplinary public historian, serving as an interpretive ranger, site manager, program manager and division chief at sites and programs such as Frederick Douglass National Historic Site, Maggie L. Walker National Historic Site, National Capital Parks-East, and the National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom Program.

Additionally, Eola’s experience includes Regional Ethnographer for the National Capital Region of the National Park Service; where her work was essential in identifying communities and traditions of significance nationally and globally through ethnographic studies, community engagement, and tribal consultation. Eola is a graduate of Southern University A & M College with a BA in History in 2001, Savannah College of Art and Design in 2015 with an MA in Historic Preservation, and is a National Park Service Environmental Concepts Fellow earning a certificate from George Washington University in 2017.

She is a proud member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc., and is currently a doctoral candidate at Howard University studying public history and the African Diaspora with emphasis on the evolution of race, identity and law in Colonial America. In her free time you’ll find Eola painting, running, doing yoga and enjoying nature; often in the company of her three sons Alan, Eli, and Emeir.