A Durham native, she is the youngest daughter of the late Judge Floyd B. McKissick Sr., an attorney and civil rights leader, and grew up in the midst of the civil rights movement. From 1993-1996 she was a Lyman T. Johnson Research Teaching Fellow and in 1992 she was awarded the Coca-Cola Minority Fellowship at the University of Notre Dame where she taught a course titled “The Civil Rights Movement and Beyond.” Prior to her appointment at NCCU, she was Associate Professor and former Chairperson of the Department of Journalism and Media Studies at Bennett College in Greensboro, NC.