James Perla is Special Assistant at the Carter G. Woodson Institute. He began working with Deborah E. McDowell in 2015-2016 on an early iteration of the Julian Bond Papers Project. From 2016-2019, he managed the Citizen Justice Initiative, a grant funded project that offered experiential learning opportunities to Charlottesville high school and undergraduate students. He produced the “Notes on the State” oral history and podcast series, which re-examined Thomas Jefferson’s legacy on the occasion of the University’s Bicentennial Celebration in 2019. To date, James has contributed to grant proposals that have garnered the Woodson Institute over $ 500,000 in grant awards for program support and special projects in addition to his program support for the Julian Bond Papers Project, which recently won a $ 2.04 M grant from the Mellon Foundation. As Special Assistant, James manages the communications, outreach, and donor engagement for the Institute and Department, supports the Woodson fellowship program, and oversees the business operations for the Institute. In addition to his role at the Woodson Institute, James is also a PhD candidate in the Department of English at the University of Maryland, College Park.