Otis Pickett
EPU’s First Eminent Scholar
South Carolina native and Historian at Clemson University, Dr. Otis Pickett was selected to serve as EPU’s first Eminent Scholar. The EPU Eminent Scholars program engages experts to advance narrative change and community dialogue that addresses systemic racism in America with Southern audiences. In this role, he will assist EPU in reaching white southern men and women to help them understand race, systemic racism and the role of the Lost Cause in creating a uniquely southern civil religion.
In 2022, Otis W. Pickett became the University Historian at Clemson University, where he is a campus resource on issues of historic interpretation, representation and commemoration for the Clemson community and is responsible for compiling and disseminating new scholarship relating to Clemson’s past.
Pickett most recently served as an associate professor of history at Mississippi College in Clinton, Mississippi. Prior to joining Mississippi College in 2013, Pickett was a clinical assistant professor of teacher education at the University of Mississippi’s Tupelo campus. He earned his doctorate in U.S. History from the University of Mississippi in Oxford, Miss., and holds Master of Arts degrees in American History from the University of Charleston and the Citadel. Pickett earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in History from Clemson.
Pickett has articles published in The Journal of African American History, Native South, The Southern Quarterly, The Journal of the South Carolina Historical Association and has contributed book chapters for several books including Southern Religion, Southern Culture: Essays Honoring Charles Reagan Wilson (University Press of Mississippi, 2018).
Pickett spent his youth in Charleston, S.C.
Stay tuned for more exciting work from Dr. Pickett!