Publications
Books
Uncontrollable Blackness: African American Men and Criminality in Jim Crow New York (University of North Carolina Press, 2020), awarded the Littleton-Griswold Book Prize from the American Historical Association (AHA) and the Association for the Study of Legal History (ASLH).
Recent Reviews:
Amy Louise Wood. American Historical Review (September 2023 - https://bit.ly/3PLQKyy)
Brian Purnell. The English Historical Review (February 2023 - https://bit.ly/3Z44nx5)
Lauren Henley. The Journal of African American History (Summer 2022 - https://bit.ly/44FZdsd)
Simon Balto. The American Journal of Legal History (March 2022 - https://bit.ly/3PnBmcK)
Tommy Aiello. The Journal of American History (September 2021 - bit.ly/3QXXTho)
Jennifer Fronc. Criminal Law and Criminal Justice Books (November 2020 - https://bit.ly/3adPuiF)
Works in Progress
“Jim Crow Prison: Black Men in America’s Heart of Darkness”
Peer-Reviewed Articles
“Into the Heart of Carceral Darkness: Black Men Sentenced to Life in Prison Under New York’s Habitual Criminal Law and the Social Death of Going Away Forever, 1926-1934,” Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era (revise and resubmit)
“Come Home to Us Once More Again”: 'Defective' Status and the Imprisonment of Young African American Men in Early Twentieth Century New York," The Journal of African American History, 107, no. 1 (Winter 2022) (https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/717344?journalCode=jaah)
“The ‘Love Bank’ Basketball Court and Gentrification on Cherokee Street in Saint Louis,” Material World of Modern Segregation Project, Special Issue in The Common Reader Journal, (Spring 2022) (https://commonreader.wustl.edu/c/love-bank-park-and-gentrification-on-cherokee-street/)
“Drug-Mad Negroes: Cocaine and Black Migration in the Making of Drug Prohibition in Progressive Era New York City, 1880-1920", Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, 20, no. 4, (Oct. 2021) (https://bit.ly/3PLRdRk)
“Fighting and cutting and shooting, and carrying on:’ Saloons, Dives and the Black ‘Tough’ in Manhattan’s Tenderloin,” Journal of Urban History, 45, no. 5, pp. 925-940 (September 2019) (first published June 2018)
“Folklore, Urban Insurrection, and the Killing of the Black Hero in the Turn of the Century South,” The Mississippi Quarterly Journal, 67 (2016): 581-604 (awarded Louis D. Rubin, Jr. Article Prize) (https://www.jstor.org/stable/26467996)
Essays, Blogs & Digital Media
“Witness: Racial Violence Digital History Project,” Digital Humanities Workshop (DHW), Washington University in St. Louis
“Our Post-Fact Reality,” The Source, November 2020
“Between Optimism & Diligence,” Washington Magazine, 91, no. 2 (November 2020) (also published online in The Common Reader)
“The Conundrum of Writing About Race and Crime,” UNC Press Blog, November 2020
“The Crucible of Black Criminality,” Australian and New Zealand American Studies Association (ANZASA) Online blog, August 2020
“Uncontrollable Blackness’ in Context,” UNC Press Blog, June 2020
“Vigilante Justice and Police Violence in Popular Imagination,” Medium, June 2020
“Is This a Watershed Moment in Police Brutality Protest? Why I am Hopeful, and What History Tells Us,” Medium, June 2020
“Myths About Black Responses to Racial Violence in the Jim Crow Era,” Vox, February 2020
“Tupac Shakur,” for the Encyclopedia of African American Culture: From Dashikis to Yoruba, ABC-CLIO/Greenwood Press (Forthcoming)
“‘A Time to Lift One’s Voice’: The East St. Louis Riot in a Migration Perspective,” Human Ties: Stories in the Humanities Blog, Center for Humanities at Washington University in St. Louis, 2017
“[T]hey’re knocking down negroes ‘round here,” Public Racial Violence and Black Self-Defense in Early 20th Century New York City, The Gotham Center Blog, 2016
“The Lyceum Theatre,” Retrofitting Rochester Digital History Series, Democrat & Chronicle, 2014
Book Reviews
Review of Matthew Vaz, Running the Numbers: Race, Police, and the History of Urban Gambling, for The Journal of American History, 108, no. 3 (December 2011): 645-646.
Review of Lane Windham, Knocking on Labor’s Door: Union Organizing in the 1970s and the Roots of a New Economic Divide, for Enterprise and Society Journal, 21, no. 1, (Spring 2020): 313-316
Review of Michael Flamm, In the Heat of the Summer: The New York Riots of 1964 and the War on Crime, for The Journal of African American History, 105, no. 2, (Spring 2020): 335-337
Review of Nancy Isenberg, White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America, for The Common Reader, 46, (Spring 2018)
Review of Keith Michael Green, Bound to Respect: Antebellum Narratives of Black Imprisonment, Servitude, and Bondage, 1816-1861, for Callaloo, 39, no. 4., (Fall 2016): 949-951
Review essay Talitha LeFlouria, Chained in Silence: Black Women and Convict Labor in the New South, Dennis Childs, Slaves of the State: Black Incarceration from the Chain Gang to the Penitentiary, and Dan Berger, Captive Nation: Black Prison Organizing in the Civil Rights Era, for Reviews in American History, 44 (2016): 327-334
Review of Cara Caddoo, Envisioning Freedom: Cinema and the Building of Modern Black Life, for The Journal of the Gilded Age and the Progressive Era 14 (2015): 266-267
Review of Catherine M. Paden, Civil Rights Advocacy on Behalf of the Poor, for The Journal of African American History 98 (Winter 2013): 166-168
Interviews
TV Co-Host, Ancient China from Above, Season 2, National Geographic.
TV Interview, Regular Correspondent, Areva Martin in Real Time, KBLA,
- September 27, 2023 (https://shorturl.at/uyEI3)
- August 30, 2023 (https://shorturl.at/DGP34)
- July 13, 2023 (https://bit.ly/47WuXfA)
- April 20, 2023 (https://bit.ly/3PmV9sM)
- April 3, 2023 (https://bit.ly/3m4Mqzo)
- February 6, 2023 (https://bit.ly/3IonmvP)
Feature Length Documentary, Urban Renewal and Lincoln Center, Firelight Media
TV Docuseries, “Prison Chronicles” (3 episodes), for The History Channel, July 2022
TV Documentary, “Lie Detector,” for American Experience - PBS, July 2022
TV Interview, “Does Black Privilege Exist,” for The Tammi Mac Late Show, July 12,2022
TV Interview, "Black Lives Matter Under Scrutiny," for The Tammi Mac Late Show, June 2, 2022
TV Interview, “George Floyd Anniversary: 2 Years On,” for TRT Worldwide TV News Roundtable, United Kingdom, May 23, 2022
TV interview on "Movement Rises to Project and Preserve Black Churches and History Around the Country," E.W. Scripps Media and Fox Affiliates, December 2021
Video Interview, Institute for Advanced Study, Scholar Spotlight, 2021
Podcast Interview, Goat Rodeo, American Public Media, July 2021
Radio Interview, KPFK Los Angeles, “Freedom Now” with Gerald Horne, June 2021
TV Interview on Reparations for African Americans, E.W. Scripps Media and Fox Affiliates, by Diane Duenez, April 19, 2021
TV Interview on “What Makes Us, Us, Part 2” The Tammi Mac Late Show, Fox Soul Channel, March 24, 2021
TV Interview on “What Makes Us, Us, Part 1” The Tammi Mac Late Show, Fox Soul Channel, March 4, 2021
Interview for “Rewriting Black and Brown History, With a Little Help from Augmented Reality,” Pallabi Munsi, OZY Media, November 2020
Interview for The Gotham Center Blog for New York City History, November 2020
Podcast Interview, “Fargo Season 4,” Killer Casting podcast, November 2020
Interview for the Ninteenth-Century Studies Association, 19 Cents Blog, October 2020
Interview for The Joe Madison Show Sirius XM on Uncontrollable Blackness, September 2020
Interview for Washington University’s The Record on Uncontrollable Blackness, by Liam Otten, August 2020
Interview, for “Injustice Collector,” Audible Originals, by Peter McDonnell, July 29, 2020
Interview for Faculty Spotlight, for Arts & Sciences, Washington University, by Kelsey Arends, July 2020
Audio Interview, Black Agenda Report Radio, by Glen Ford, July 9, 2020
Video Interview, “Juneteenth and Collective Progress,” for The Source, June 19, 2020
Interview, “The Need for Black History on the Syllabus,” for OZY Media, June 9, 2020
Written Interview, Uncontrollable Blackness, “Book Forum Interview,” for Black Agenda Report, June 2020
Interview, “The History of Police Brutality Against Black People in America,” for ITV News, June 9, 2020
TV Interview, “Black Lives Matter: Beginning of the End for White Privilege?,” for TRT Worldwide TV News, June 10, 2020
Podcast Interview, “Examining Race and Police Conflict with Douglas Flowe,” for Real Crime Profile, (3 episodes), June 7, 2020
TV interview, CNN Tonight with Don Lemon, June 4, 2020
Podcast Interview for The Economist, Checks & Balances podcast, interview by John Shields
Interview for L’Opinion, “Les Violences Policieres et la crise du Covid-19 sont une metaphore de la condition des Noirs aux Etats-Unis,” interview by Gilles Senges, June 3, 2020
Interview for Politico, “Many Crises, or Just One?” interview by Renuka Rayasam, June 2, 2020
"Omitted History" for the Center for Humanities (WashU)
Honors
Littleton-Griswold Book Prize, American Historical Association (AHA) and the American Society for Legal History (ASLH), 2021
Georgie W. Lewis Career Development Professorship, History Department, Washington University in Saint Louis (2021-2024)
Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Fellowship, The Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey (IAS), School of Historical Studies, 2021-2022
Circle of Excellence Silver Award for Writing Feature (multi-author collaboration in Washington Magazine), Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE) (2021)
Faculty Fellowship, Center for the Study of Race, Ethnicity & Equity (CRE2), Washington University in Saint Louis, Spring 2022
Divided Cities Course Design Grant, 2020
Center for the Humanities, Washington University in Saint Louis
Excellence in Teaching Award, 2018
Council of Arts & Sciences, Washington University in Saint Louis
Trailblazer Faculty Award, 2018
Center for Diversity & Inclusion, Washington University in Saint Louis
Center for the Humanities Faculty Fellowship, Fall 2018
Washington University in Saint Louis
Louis D. Rubin, Jr. Article Prize (for best article on Southern Literature), 2017
Society for the Study of Southern Literature
Postdoctoral Fellowship in Inequality and Identity, 2014
Washington University in Saint Louis
Frederick Douglass Institute Research Award, 2012
Frederick Douglass Institute for African and African American Studies
Donald Marks "Dexter Perkins Prize" in History, 2012
University of Rochester - History Department
Provost’s Fellowship, 2007
University of Rochester
Recent Service to the Profession
Editorial Board Member, Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, (JGAPE)
Board of Directors for the Urban History Association, 2018-2021
Phi Alpha Theta Academic Essay Judge, 2016
Editorial Board Member and Manuscript reviewer for the Annuals of the Next Generation Journal, 2014-present
Courses at Washington University in St. Louis
HIS 5263: Graduate Seminar: Race, Crime, and American Prisons
L61 2201: Urban Crisis and Renewal
HIST 487: Race and Drugs in American History
AMCS 330C: The Politics of Black Criminality and Popular Protest
HIST 301U: Historical Methods – American Masculinity
HIST 2561: Urban America
AMCS 206: Reading Culture: Engaging the City
AMCS 230: Exploring Urban Change
