Carla L. Peterson (born September 4, 1944[1]) is a Professor of English at the University of Maryland, College Park.
Peterson has participated in the TV documentaries, “Ticket to Freedom” and “Remembering Slavery.” Peterson has held curriculum development workshops for public school teachers and served as a USIA academic specialist in American Studies at institutions such as Quisqueya University, Port-au-Prince, Haiti.
She has also taught summer seminars in Rio de Janeiro and Mexico City.
Peterson's most recent book, Black Gotham: African American Family and Community in Nineteenth-Century New York, was published in 2012.
The book is a non-fiction account of nineteenth-century black New Yorkers, viewed from the perspective of family histories.