[2] Fields-Black earned a BA degree in English and History from Emory University and an MA degree in history from the University of Florida, before earning MA and PhD degrees from the University of Pennsylvania, where she wrote her dissertation on the anthropology of rice farmers in the Nunez River region of Guinea.
[3][4] Apart from her research on rice agriculture in coastal Guinea and Sierra Leone, Fields-Black has also performed research on the Gullah Geechee people,[5] the Trans-Atlantic slave trade, and other topics in African-American history.
[7] Fields-Black's books include Deep Roots: Rice Farmers in West Africa and the African Diaspora and the co-edited volume Rice: Global Networks and New Histories.
[8][9] She published a study on Harriet Tubman during the Civil War, enslaved Lowcountry rice laborers, and the Combahee River Raid in February 2024.
[10] She is married to Samuel Black, a historian, curator, and archivist who is director of African-American programs at the Senator John Heinz History Center.