LaShawn Harris is a Professor of History at Michigan State University and former Assistant Editor of the Journal of African American History (JAAH). Her area of expertise includes twentieth century African American and Black Women’s histories. Harris’s scholarly essays have appeared in The Journal of African American History, Journal of Social History, Journal of Women's History, and the Journal of Urban History.Harris’s work has been widely featured in popular media outlets, including TV-One, Glamour Magazine, Elle, Vice, The Huffington Post, The History Channel, and Paramount Television Studios. Her first monograph Sex Workers, Psychics, and Number Runners: Black Women in New York City’s Underground Economy was published by the University of Illinois Press in 2016.  In 2017, Sex Worker, Psychics, and Numbers Runners won the Organization of American Historians (OAH) Darlene Clark Hine award for the best book in African American women's and gender history; and it won the Philip Taft Labor Prize from The Labor and Working-Class History Association (LAWCHA).

Harris is also the author of Tell Her Story: Eleanor Bumpurs & The Police Killing that Galvanized New York City. Published by Beacon Press in 2025, Tell Her Story was named a 2026 finalist for the Association for the Study of African American Life and History book prize and the Association of American Publishers Award for Professional and Scholarly Excellence (PROSE Awards).