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Meet Our Keynote Speker
Earl L. Ijames is a 7th-generation North Carolinian whose also an Emmy Award-winning farmer and Historian. The Winston-Salem native is a 1987 alum of George Washington Carver High School- one of only five African American public high schools that survived integration.
A 1991 graduate of North Carolina State University, Ijames majored in history and minored in economics and English. He has a background in genealogy and historic preservation and began a career as an archivist in 1990 at the State Archives of North Carolina.
Since 2008, he has served as curator of African American history and agriculture at the North Carolina Museum of History. Ijames serves on various boards and has curated many exhibits, produced historical programs, and appeared in numerous documentaries.
He and his wife, Eugenia, live in an 1890 Victorian home they moved and restored onto their Lake Shore Palms Farm in Johnston County. They specialize in growing long leaf pines, native palms, and crops that originate in Africa.
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