Dr. Cunningham earned her M.A. and Ph.D. from USC where she won the Robert H. Wienefeld Essay Prize and was a Fellow in the Grace Jordan McFadden Professors Program. Her research focuses on the 20th century African American experience with a special emphasis on civil rights, education, gender, and the South.  She has presented her research at numerous conferences, including the Association for the Study of African American Life and History, the History of Education Society, and Southern Labor Studies. She is currently working on a manuscript about African American teachers who were in the long civil rights movement.