#i2amru (I, Too, Am Reinhardt) Volume 1 Number 1 | Page 76
From Africa To Atlanta
An interview with Dr. Anne Good
yard, and pineapple plants in our
back garden. At least once a year,
we would see a massive migration
of big black driver ants. And the
Efik people of that area were full
of joy, it seemed to me. I have very
good memories of our four and
half years there.”
“I’m an American girl. I was
born in Ann Arbor, but my
parents are from Minnesota,” said Dr. Good. Although
she was born in the U.S, Dr.
Good spent a significant
amount of time in Africa while growing up. Her
parents were missionaries,
which allowed them to live
in three different parts of
Africa that were already
Christian. “We moved to
the part of Ethiopia that is
now Eritrea when I was two,
and we lived there about
2 1/2 years. Although my
parents are very practical
and grounded people, at the
time that we lived there, a
massive civil war was going
on. I don’t remember ever
feeling frightened, though,”
76
After she returned to the
United States for a short time,
her family moved to Nigeria
West Africa, to the southern part
of the country. “I really loved Nigeria; where we lived was an excellent place to be a child,” Dr. Good
reminisced. “For example, we had
guava and cashew trees to climb
in our front,
By Andrea Eison
in the countryside in KwaZulu-Natal at a place called Enhlanhleni, which means ‘place of
luck’,” remembered Dr. Good.
Once Dr. Anne Good returned to the United States
she attended St. Louis University, where she received a
B.A in History, and later
entered the University
of Minnesota, where she
received her M.A and Ph.D.
in History. After she graduated from the University of
Minnesota, she married Dr.
Jonathan Good, who is also
now a History professor at
Reinhardt University.
After Nigeria, they then moved
to South Africa. She was eleven
when they arrived, and eighteen when the family went
back to America. “When I think
of ‘home’, I still often think of
where we lived in South Africa
-- which was out
They hoped to escape the
cold and brutal winters of
the northern Midwest, so
they began to look around
for jobs in the South. “After
finishing my dissertation,
I knew it would be hard to
find a job, because opportunities in the field of History
would be very limited,” she
remembered. Having two
people looking for a job in
History only made the hunt
even harder. When Dr. Jonathan Good was asked why
he believes his wife came to
Reinhardt, he replied jok-
(Photo courtesy of Donald Gregory)
Dr. Anne Good joined the faculty
as an Assistant Professor of History in 2004, and she also now
serves as the History Program
Coordinator. After being a professor at Reinhardt University for ten
years, Dr. Anne Good has built up
a trove of relationships with her
students as well as the faculty and
staff members.
“When something is
challenging and you
have to work hard for
something--that is the
way college should
be.”
“I would like to think I’m the
reason she