Additional Degrees
M.A., 1967, Columbia University
Ph.D., 1974, Columbia University
RESEARCH INTERESTS
My main areas of research have been the history of the civil rights movement, especially the expansion of black voting rights and black politics. My major publications include: Black Ballots: Voting Rights in the South, 1944-1969; In Pursuit of Power: Southern Blacks and Electoral Politics, 1965-1982; Running for Freedom: Civil Rights and Black Politics in America Since 1941; and Debating the Civil Rights Movement (with Charles Payne). I have also written about the presidency of Lyndon B. Johnson and his civil rights programs. I am also interested in the connection between civil rights and the political culture the late 1950s and early 1960s. In this vein, I have done research on civil rights, fear of conspiracies, rock ‘n’ roll, and the Payola Scandal of 1959-60.
COURSES REGULARLY TAUGHT
Undergraduate
- U.S. 1945 to Present
- Development of U.S. Since 1865
- Seminar on Civil Rights
- Honors Seminar on the 1960s
- Famous Trials: Civil Liberties in Modern America
- History of the Civil Rights Movement
Graduate
- Colloqium: Civil Rights Movement
- PDR III
PUBLICATIONS
- Exploring American Histories (Bedford/St. Martin’s Press, December 2012)
- In Pursuit of Power: Southern Blacks and Electoral Politics, 1965–1982 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1985)
- Running for Freedom: Civil Rights and Black Politics in America Since 1941. Philadelphia: Temple University Press (cloth) and New York: McGraw-Hill (paper), 1991.
- Running for Freedom: Civil Rights and Black Politics in America Since 1941, Second Edition. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1997.
- Debating the Civil Rights Movement, 1945-1968. Lanham, MD.: Rowman- Littlefield, 1998, with Charles Payne.
- Black Ballots: Voting Rights in the South, 1944-1969. [Reprint edition with new preface] Lanham, MD.: Lexington Books, 1999.
- CIVIL RIGHTS CROSSROADS: Nation, Community, and the Black Freedom Struggle University Press of Kentucky, 2003.
AWARDS
- Phi Alpha Theta Award for Best First Book, 1977
- CHOICE Outstanding Book for IN PURSUIT OF POWER, 1986.
- National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Reasearch Award, 1979
- American Council of Learned Societies Summer Fellowship, 1979
- National Humanities Center Fellow, 1987-88.
PROFESSIONAL AFFILIATIONS
- American Historical Association
- Organization of American Historians
- Southern Historical Asscoiation
