DR. HEATHER ANN THOMPSON
Professor of History & African American Studies
The University of Michigan
EDUCATION:
Princeton University. American History, Ph.D., 1995
The University of Michigan. History, M.A. (With Distinction), 1987
The University of Michigan. History, B.A. (Highest Honors), 1987
PUBLICATIONS:
Books:
Thompson, Blood in the Water: The Attica Uprising of 1971 and its Legacy (Pantheon Books, August 23, 2016)
Thompson, Whose Detroit: Politics, Labor and Race in a Modern American City (Cornell University Press, 2001). (New Edition of this book: May, 2017)
Thompson, ed. Speaking Out With Many Voices: Documenting American Activism and Protest in the 1960s and 1970s, (Pearson, 2009)
Articles in Refereed Journals:
“Reckoning with the Artifacts of Attica: What Was Found, What Wasn’t, and Why It Matters.” New York History. Special Issue. (Summer, 2021)
“The Racial History of Criminal Justice in America.” Dubois Review: Social Science Research on Race. (Spring, 2019).
“Unmaking the Motor City in the Age of Mass Incarceration.” Journal of Law and Society. (December, 2014)
“Lessons from Attica: From Prisoner Rebellion to Mass Incarceration and Back.” In special issue: “Mass Incarceration and Political Repression,” co-edited by Mumia Abu-Jamal and Johanna Fernández. Socialism and Democracy, #66, vol. 28, no. 3 (December, 2014)
“Writing the Perilously Recent Past: The Historian’s Dilemma.” American Historical Association. Perspectives. (Fall, 2013)
“Rethinking Working Class Struggle through the Lens of the Carceral State: Toward a Labor History of Inmates and Guards.” Labor: Studies in the Working Class History of the Americas(Fall, 2011)
Article for special issue of Criminology and Public Policy. Debate with Joshua Page on role of guard unions in the crisis of mass incarceration.
Joshua Page, “Prison Officer Unions and the Perpetuation of the Penal Status Quo.”Criminology and Public Policy. Special Issue: Special Issue on Mass Incarceration. August 2011. Volume 10, Issue 3
Heather Ann Thompson, “Downsizing the Carceral State: The Policy Implications of Prison Guard Unions.” Criminology and Public Policy. Special Issue: Special Issue on Mass Incarceration. August 2011. Volume 10, Issue 3
“Why Mass Incarceration Matters: Rethinking Crisis, Decline and Transformation in Postwar American History,” Journal of American History. (December, 2010)
“Making a Second Urban History.” Essay collection commemorating the publication of Arnold Hirsch’s, Making a Second Ghetto in the Journal of Urban History (May, 2003)
”Another War at Home: Reexamining Working Class Politics in the 1960s,”MidAmerica. (September 2000)
“Rethinking the Politics of White Flight in the Postwar City: Detroit, 1945-1980,” The Journal of Urban History. (January, 1999)
Chapters in Books:
“Criminalizing the Kids: The Overlooked Reason for Failing Schools.” In Michael B. Katz and Mike Rose, eds., Public Education Under Siege (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013)
“From Researching the Past to Reimagining the Future: Locating Carceral Crisis, and the Key to its End, in the Long 20th Century,” In The Punitive Turn: Race, Prisons, Justice, and Inequality (forthcoming, University of Virginia Press)
“Blinded by a “Barbaric” South: Prison Horrors, Inmate Abuse and the Ironic History of Penal Reform in the Postwar United States” in Lassiter and Crespino, ed. The End of Southern History? (Oxford University Press, 2009)
“All Across the Nation: Black Power Militancy in America’s Plants, Prisons, and Southern Piedmont, 1965-1975” in Kenneth Kusmer and Joe Trotter, eds, African American Urban History and Race Relations after World War Two (University of Chicago Press, 2009)
Author, book chapter. “The Midwestern Freedom Struggle and the Remaking of the Urban America: Lessons from Postwar Detroit” in Rusty Monhollen, ed., The Black Freedom Struggle in the Midwest (Palgrave, to readers)
“Mayor Coleman A. Young: Race and the Reshaping of Postwar Detroit,” in Roger Biles, ed. American Urban History, (Scholarly Resources Books, June 2002)
“Rethinking the Collapse of Liberalism: The Rise of Mayor Coleman Young and the Politics of Race in Postwar Detroit,” chapter in David R. Colburn, and Jeffery Adler, eds., African American Mayors, (The University of Illinois Press, April 2001)
“Urban Uprisings: Riots or Rebellions,” chapter in David Farber and Beth Bailey, eds.The Columbia Guide to America in the 1960s. (June 2001)
“New Autoworkers, Dissent and The UAW: Detroit and Lordstown,” chapter in Robert Asher and Ronald Edsforth, eds., Autowork, (New York: SUNY Press, 1995)
Guest Edited Journal Issues:
Invited to co-edit a special issue of the Journal of American History entitled, “Historians and the Carceral State.” June, 2015
Introduction: Constructing the Carceral State
Coeditor of a special issue entitled “Urban Spaces and the Carceral State” for theJournal of Urban History. September, 2015
Newspaper/Magazine Articles:
Invited reprinting of key articles in Bunk History. February, 2024.
A University’s Sinister Move is Unfortunately Part of a Familiar Story. CNN. February 16, 2022
“Gefängnisnation Usa: Eine Geschichte der Macht” APuZ. Berlin. Published as a supplement of the fortnightly newspaper of the German Parliament, Das Parlament. October 15, 2021.
“Honoring Attica After Half a Century.”The Nation. September 13, 2021
“50 Years After Attica, Prisoners Are Still Protesting Brutal Conditions. Will America Finally Listen?” TIME. September 8, 2021 (print edition: September 13, 2021)
“The policy mistakes from the 1990s that have made covid-19 worse.” Washington Post. May 4, 2020
“How a Series of Jail Rebellions Rocked New York—and Woke a City.” The Nation. April 8, 2019
“An Enduring Shame.” The New York Review of Books. October 25, 2018
“The National Prison Strike is now Over: Now is the Time Prisoners are Most in Danger.” The Conversation. September 12, 2018
"Why Meek Mill's Release from Prison Matters More than you Think." Rolling Stone. May 3, 2018
"How a South Carolina Prison Riot Really Went Down." New York Times. April 28, 2018
"Opiod Concerns Supplant Hope for Broader Reform." The Washington Spectator. December 26, 2017
“Attica: It’s Worse Than We Thought.” New York Times. November 19, 2017
“America Must Listen to its Prisoners.” The Washington Post. September 8, 2017
Voices from the Sweltering Inside. Jacobin. July 28, 2017
The New Detroit’s Fatal Flaw. The Washington Post. July 23, 2017
What is Hidden Behind the Walls of America’s Prisons The Conversation. June, 2017
Tough on Crime Plans” Won’t Deliver Justice Newsweek. May 13, 2017
What Happened at Vaughn Prison? Jacobin. February 2, 2017
Prisons are Erupting and Why it Matters. The Daily Beast. October 21, 2016
Charlotte is Burning. NBC. September 22, 2016
Attica’s Lessons Went Unlearned: Our Prisons are Still a Disgrace. The Daily Beast. September 13, 2016.
Lessons from the Attica Prison Uprising, 45 Years Later. NBC. September 9, 2016
Our Nation in Crisis. Huffington Post. July 11, 2016
A Public Reckoning with Mass Incarceration. Huffington Post. April 12, 2016
Putting the Oregon Standoff in Perspective: America’s History of Protest and Its Ironies Huffington Post. January 6, 2016.
“How Attica’s Ugly Past is Still Protected.” Time Magazine. May 26, 2015.
“America’s Real State of Emergency: Baltimore and Beyond.” Huffington Post. April 28, 2015
“Why are Relations Between Black America and the Police so Poor?” BBC History Magazine. February, 2015
“Ferguson’s Despair and Devastation of White Privilege” Huffington Post. November 30, 2014.
“Violence in Post-Verdict Ferguson: What We Should Really Be Worried About.”Huffington Post. November 20, 2014
“Inner City Violence in the Age of Mass Incarceration.” The Atlantic. October 30, 2014
“The Fury in Ferguson and Our Forgotten Lessons from History.” Huffington Post.August 18, 2014.
“The Shame of the Nation: The Fight to Keep Children Locked up for Life.” Huffington Post. August 6, 2014
“Redemption and the War on Drugs.” TED Talk Weekend. Huffington Post. July 25, 2014
“Dodging Decarceration: The Shell Game of ‘Getting Smart’ on Crime.” Huffington Post. July 9, 2014
“Rescuing America’s Inner Cities? Detroit and the Perils of Private Policing.”Huffington Post. June 25, 2014
“Empire State Disgrace: The Dark, Secret History of the Attica Prison Tragedy.”Salon.com May 24, 2014
“How Prisons Change the Balance of Power in America.” The Atlantic. October 7, 2013
The Prison Industrial Complex: A Growth Industry in a Shrinking Economy.” New Labor Forum. (Fall, 2012)
Response from Rob Scott and Thompson Response to Scott: New Labor Forum.(Winter, 2012
“Criminalizing the Kids: The Overlooked Reason for Failing Schools” Dissent, (Fall, 2011)
“The Lingering Injustice of Attica.” Oped. The New York Times. September 9, 2011
Blogs and Print/Video/Podcast Interviews*:
Heather Ann Thompson. Attica and Accountability in Albany Today. September 16, 2021
Heather Ann Thompson. Attica. This Day in Esoteric History Podcast. September 14, 2021
Heather Ann Thompson. Attica at 50. Citizen Truth. June 2. 2021
Heather Ann Thompson. Attica: 50 Years Later. The Brief. April 7, 2021
Heather Ann Thompson, Blood in the Water. Listen in Michigan. February 22, 2021
Heather Ann Thompson. The Berkeley Socialist Behind Mass Incarceration. February 2, 2021
Heather Ann Thompson, The Packaged Tourist. November 10, 2020
Heather Ann Thompson, Red, Blue, and Brady. September 2, 2020
Heather Ann Thompson. The Curious Man’s Podcast. July 28, 2020
Heather Ann Thompson, Perilous Chronicle. June 17, 2020
Heather Ann Thompson with Dylan Matthews, How today’s protests compare to 1968, explained by a historian. Vox. June 2, 2020
Heather Ann Thompson with Jonah Walters, Prisons are Microcosms of the Broader Society. Jacobin. April 14, 2020
Heather Ann Thompson with Brooke Blower and Thomas Andrews, The Writer’s Studio with Heather Ann Thompson. Modern American History. March, 2019.
Heather Ann Thompson with Amy Goodman, Between Lee and Attica. Democracy Now. August 23. 2018.
Heather Ann Thompson. Obama Civil Rights Legacy. Harvard University. October 13, 2016
Heather Ann Thompson. Attica. Need to Know. PBS. October 5, 2017.
Heather Ann Thompson with Shawn Gude, Remembering Attica. Jacobin. September 9, 2016.
Heather Ann Thompson, The Arc of History and SCOTUS. Life of the Law. June 26, 2015.
“Are We Any Closer to Ending the Death Penalty? A Word of Caution.” Life of the Law. July 17, 2014. www.lifeofthelaw.org
“Who Does the Freedom of Information Law Protect? Attica and the Code of State Silence.”Life of the Law. May 16th, 2014. www.lifeofthelaw.org
*For Radio Interviews click here.
Review Essays:
“Telling it Like it Really Was: Women’s Movement Activism and Movement Making in Postwar America.” Review essay of Kimberly Springer, Living for the Revolution: Black Feminist Organizations, 1968-1980 and Christina Greene, Women and the Black Freedom Movement in Durham, North Carolina Warriors in Reviews in American History. (March, 2006)
“Rescuing the Right.” Review of Lisa McGirr, Suburban Warriors in Reviews in American History (June 2002)
“Searching for Synthesis: Urban Rioting in Postwar America.” Review Essay. The Journal of Urban History. (March 2000)
Book Reviews:
Review of Douglas Blackmon, Slavery by Another Name (Doubleday, 2009). Against the Current (Fall, 2010)
Review of Glenda Gilmore, Defying Dixie (Norton, 2007) in Labor: Studies in Working Class and Labor History (Fall, 2009)
Review of David Freund, Colored Property (University of Chicago Press, 2007) in Journal of Southern History (Spring, 2009)
Review of Henry Pratt, Churches and Urban Government in Detroit and New York, 1895-1999(Wayne State University Press, 2004), in American Historical Review (March, 2006)
Review of Suzanne Smith, Dancing in the Streets: The Cultural Politics of Detroit, in Labor History (Spring 2001)
Review of Frederick Siegel, The Future Once Happened Here, in Left History (Spring 2001)
Review of Timothy Minchin, Hiring the Black Worker, in Social History (January 2001)
Review of Mary Stolberg, Bridging the River of Hatred: The Pioneering Efforts of Detroit Police Commissioner George Edwards, in The Michigan Historical Review (September 1999)
Review of Thomas Sugrue, The Origins of Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit, in Against the Current , (January/February, 1998)
Review of Leon Fink and Brian Greenberg, Upheaval in the Quiet Zone, in Pennsylvania History, (January, 1991)
Manuscript Series Edited:
Justice, Power, and Politics. Series coeditor with Rhonda Y. Williams (Case Western Reserve). University of North Carolina Press. Acquisitions Editor, Brandon Proia. Spring 2010-present.
American Social Movements of the Twentieth Century. Series Editor. Routledge. Acquisitions Editor, Margo Irvin. Fall 2008-present. (Books already secured for this series include: Daryl Maeda, Rethinking Asian-Pacific American Activism inModern America, Marc Stein, Rethinking the Gay and Lesbian Civil Rights Movement,Yohuru Williams, Rethinking the Black Power Movement, Marc Rodriquez, Rethinking Chicano Activism in the United States after WW II, Felicia Kornbluh, Rethinking the Disability Rights Movement, Lorrin Thomas, Rethinking the Puerto Rican Rights Movement Permilla Nadasen, Rethinking the Welfare Rights Movement, Simon Hall, Rethinking the Anti-War Movement, Annelise Orleck, Rethinking the Women’s Rights Movement; Elizabeth Faue, Rethinking the American Labor Movement; Ellen Spear, Rethinking the Environmental Movement, Andrew Achenbaum, Rethinking the Elderly Rights Movement.)
Works in Progress:
Heather Ann Thompson, Bullet and Burn: The MOVE Bombing of 1985 and Law and Order America (Pantheon Books, manuscript in progress).
Heather Ann Thompson, "Lore and Logics: The Liberal State, the Carceral State, and the Limits of Justice and Inequality in Postwar America” (Article reviewed and now being revised for the American Historical Review)
Documentary Films/Television:
Consulting Producer. Crime and Punishment Project. A Lynn Novick Film. In development.
Titled Historical Consultant. Attica. A Stanley Nelson Film. Showtime.
Historical Consultant and Commentary. CBS News and BET Series. Boiling Point.
Historical Commentary. Detroit Comeback City.
Historical Consultant and Commentary. CNN Mini-series. 1968
Historical Consultant and Commentary. CBS Morning News. 1967 Uprising Detroit
Historical Consultant and Commentary. Anthony Bourdain producer. Detroit documentary
Historical Advisor, College Behind Bars. A Lynn Novick Film on the Bard Prison Initiative.
Historical Advisor, film And Still I Rise, by Henry Louis Gates. PBS produced.
Contributor to PBS project, “Incarceration Nation.”
Historical Consultant and Interviewee for documentary on the Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 done by Emmy award-winning filmmakers Christine Christopher and David Marshall. Title: “Criminal Injustice: Death and Politics at Attica.” (Blue Sky Films, 2013)
Historical Advisor for documentary on Algiers Hijacking of 1972 by Maia Weschsler. Title: “Melvin and Jean: An American Story.” (2013)
Consultant and Interviewee in National Geographic documentary on the Attica Prison Uprising of 1971. “The Final Report: Attica Prison Riot.” 2006
For more on work in television and film see: team page here: History Studio and filmography here: IMBD
AWARDS, FELLOWSHIPS, AND HONORS:
Recognition of Service Award. The Urban History Association. Pittsburgh, PA. October 27, 2023Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar. 2024-2025
Meet the Moment Grant. 2 Million Dollar, Multi-Year Research Award for justice project entitled “Criminalization, Confinement, and Containment in America.” Co-PIs: Heather Ann Thompson, Matthew Lassiter, and Christian Davenport. The University of Michigan. June, 2022.
Academy-Award Nomination, “Best Feature Documentary,” received for Stanley Nelson’s ATTICA. 2022. Historical consultant on this project. Other nominations for film included: Columbia Film Critics Association, NAACP Image Awards, Critics Choice Documentary Award, Latino Entertainment Journalists Award, Indiewire Critics Poll. Awards won for film include African American Film Critics Best Documentary Award and National Board of Review, Top Five Documentaries Award.
Life Long Dedication to Social Justice Award. Alliance of Families for Justice. 2021.
Regents Distinguished Award for Public Service. University of Michigan. 2021
The Guggenheim Fellowship. 2021-2022
Bearing Witness Fellow, 2020-2022. Art for Justice Fund. (Partner Grantee: Documenting Criminalization and Confinement in America Project).
Pitt Professor of American History and Diplomacy, 2019-2020. University of Cambridge, UK.
Golden Apple Teaching Award. Student Nominee. 2019. The University of Michigan.
Faculty Team Grant. Documenting Criminalization and Confinement Project. Humanities Collaboratory. University of Michigan. 2019-2022
Faculty grant. 5x5 Collaboratory Summer Grant. Humanities Collaboratory. University of Michigan. Summer, 2019.
Bearing Witness Fellow, 2018-2019. Art for Justice Fund. (Partner Grantee: Prison Creative Arts Program).
The Michigan Society of Fellows, Senior Fellow, 2018-2021
The Charles Warren Center, Fellow. Harvard University. 2017-2018
Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and its Legacy
The Pulitzer Prize in History, 2017
The Bancroft Prize in American History and Diplomacy, 2017
The Law and Literature Prize, New York County Bar Association, 2017
Media for a Just Society Award, 2017.
The Ridenhour Prize, 2017
The J. Willard Hurst Prize in Socio-Legal History, 2017
Los Angeles Times Book Prize Finalist 2017
The Cundill Prize in History, 2017. Finalist
Silver Gavel Award For Media and The Arts (Honorable Mention, May, 2017)
New York City Bar Association Award 2016, Outstanding Contribution In The Field Of Public Information
National Book Award Finalist 2016
Truthout.org. Progressive Pick, 2018
New York Times, Paperback Row Pick, 2017
New York Times Most Notable Books of 2016
Top Ten Best Books of 2016 Publishers Weekly
Top Ten Best Works Of Non Fiction of 2016 Kirkus Reviews
Top Ten Books of 2016 Newsweek
Best Human Rights Books of 2016
Amazon #1 Bestseller, Law Enforcement.
Best History Books of 2016 Bloomberg
Best Books of 2016 Boston Globe
Best Non Fiction Books 2016 Christian Science Monitor
Favorite Books 2016 Buffalo News
Top Ten Non-Local Books of 2016 Baltimore City Paper
Best Books 2016 The Undefeated
Best Criminal Justice Books 2016 The Marshall Project
Best Nonfiction Books 2016 Book Scrolling
Curator Pick Best of 2016, The Smithsonian
Best Books of 2016, Tropics Of Meta
Starred Reviews: Kirkus Review, Publishers Weekly, Library Journal
Finalist for 2015 J. Anthony Lucas Award for Best Work-in-Progress in Non-Fiction. The Columbia School of Journalism. March, 2015
Finalist for 2014 Just Media Award for Magazine Article: “How Prisons Change the Balance of Power in America.” The Atlantic. October 7, 2013. National Council for Crime and Delinquency. (winner announced October, 2014).
Appointed Distinguished OAH Lecturer. Organization of American Historians. 2013.
Havens Center Visiting Scholar at University of Wisconsin-Madison during 2012-2013.
Most Distinguished Scholarly Article Award for “Rethinking Working Class Struggle Through the Lens of the Carceral State: Toward a Labor History of Inmates and Guards,” Labor: Studies in Working Class History of the Americas (Fall, 2011). Awarded by the Labor Movements Section. The American Sociological Association.
Best Article in Urban History 2011 Award for “Why Mass Incarceration Matters: Rethinking Crisis, Decline, and Transformation in Postwar American History,” Journal of American History (December, 2010). Awarded by Urban History Association.
The Soros Justice Fellowship. The Open Society Institute. 2006-2007
The Franklin Research Grant, The American Philosophical Association. 2005
The Hackman Research Residency Grant, The New York State Archives. 2004
Littleton-Griswold Research Grant, American Historical Association. 2004
The Rockefeller Foundation, the Rockefeller Archive Center Research Grant. 2004
The National Endowment for the Humanities, Research Fellowship. 2000-2001
The University of North Carolina at Charlotte: National Endowment for the Humanities, Focus Grant: “African American Identity.” 2004; Senior Faculty Research Grant, 2003-2004, 2006-2007; “Teaching American History” Grant U.S. Department of Education. Partnership between Charlotte Mecklenberg Schools and University of North Carolina at Charlotte, 2002-2005; CID Grant. Faculty Stipend Award for: The Digital Sound Archive Initiative, 2001; Junior Faculty Summer Research Grant, 2000; Junior Faculty Summer Research Grant, 1999; NEH Latin American Studies Initiative Course Development Grant, 1998-99; Junior Faculty Summer Research Grant, 1998; Faculty Research Support Grant, 1998
Princeton University: The Rollins Prize, 1990, 1991;The Shelby Collum Davis Merit Prize, 1987, 1988, 1989; Princeton University Fellowship Award, 1987-1992
EMPLOYMENT:
The University of Michigan
Frank W. Thompson Professor of History and African American Studies* in the Department of Afro-American and African Studies, The Residential College, and The Department of History. Fall 2015-present
*(Appointed to Distinguished Rank by the Board of Regents, May 2017)
Co-founder, Carceral State Project
Faculty, Program in Race, Law, and History
Advisor, Crime and Justice Minor
Affiliate, Institute for Social Research, PSC
Courses, School of Art and Architecture
Temple University. Associate Professor of History in the Department of African American Studies and the Department of History. August 2009-2015
Appointed Associate Director, Center for the Humanities (CHAT). August 2010-2015
The University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Associate Professor. Department of History. August 2002-July 2009
Visiting Associate Professor at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (Spring 2009)
Appointed to faculty in Public Policy Ph.D. program, 2004-July 2009
Affiliated faculty Department of Africana Studies, 2004-July 2009
The University of North Carolina at Charlotte
Assistant Professor. Department of History. August 1997-August 2002
The University of Michigan
Visiting Assistant Professor. Joint Appointment, the Department of History and Residential College. Fall 1995- Summer 1997
ELECTED OFFICES:
President, Urban History Association, 2018-2022
President-Elect, Urban History Association, 2017
President, Southern Labor Studies Association, 2008-2009
BOARDS/COMMITTEES:
Advisor. Jail House Law Library. Prisoners Legal Advocacy Network. National Lawyers Guild. 2021-2023
Advisory Board Member. Detroit Public Theater. 2018-Present
Committee Member. Committee on Law and Justice. National Academy of Sciences. Washington, DC. 2018-present
Founding Advisory Board Member. Detroit Justice Center. 2018
Editorial Board, Black Perspectives. African American Intellectual History Society. 2021-2023
Attica 50th Commemoration Committee. NYC. 2021
Prize Committee Juror, World Literary Foundation. 2021
Editorial Board Member, Michigan Journal of Law and Society. 2021
Advisory Board Member, Rights Behind Bars. Washington, DC. 2020
Advisory Board Member, Prisoner Legal Advocacy Network (PLAN). National Lawyers Guild—DE, NJ Chapter. 2020.
Prize Committee Juror. Society of American Historians. 2021
Prize Committee Juror. Frieze Impact Prize. 2020
Grant Selection Committee Member. Mellon Foundation. 2020
Project Team Co-Lead. “Conditions of Confinement” component project. Documenting Criminalization and Confinement Project. University of Michigan. 2020-present
Board Member. Prison Creative Arts Program. 2019-present
Editorial Board Member. History in the Headlines. University of Georgia Press. 2017-present
Advisory Board, Alliance of Families for Justice, 2016-Present
Steering Committee. The Carceral State Project. University of Michigan. 2018-present
Editorial Board. Law and History Review. 2017-present
Diversity Scholars Network. Member. 2017-present
Advisory Council Member. Art for Justice Fund. 2017-present
Advisory Board Member. Detroit Metropolitan Area Study Project. Institute for Social Research. The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. 2014-Present
Advisory Board Member. Mass Incarceration and Prison Studies database. Alexander Street Press, a Proquest company. 2019
Art for Justice Juror. The National Book Foundation. Literature for Justice Program. 2018.
Prize Committee Member, The Bancroft Prize, 2018-19
Square One Justice Project at Columbia University’s Justice Lab, “The Racial History of Criminal Justice. October, 2018.
Planning/advisory board member: 75th anniversary conference on Gunnar Myrdal’s An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy to be sponsored by the Social Science Research Council (SSRC), the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture of the New York Public Library, and the Department of Economics at Columbia University. 2018-2019.
Co-Founder. The Carceral State Project. University of Michigan. 2017.
Advisor/Reviewer. City of Detroit, "The Neighborhoods" news service repository of publicly accessible history of the city. http://theneighborhoods.org/home
Editorial Advisory Board Member, Advances in Sustainability and Environmental Justice. Journal.
Partner/Speaker. Humanize the Numbers Project. The University of Michigan. 2015-2016
Appointed, Humanities Scholar for the Humanities Action Lab’s nationally traveling, multi-platform public humanities project on the history and human experience of incarceration. The New School for Public Engagement. Consulting scholar for project April 2015 – January 2016.
Board Member, Labor and Working Class History Association, 2011-2014
Nominating Committee Member, Urban History Association, 2014-2017
Nominating Committee Member, Labor And Working Class History Association, 2013-2015
Advisory Board Member. Media and the Movement: Journalism, Civil Rights, and Black Power in the American South. Duke University and the University of North Carolina’s Southern Oral History Program in the Center for the Study of the American South.
National Study Team Member. “The Causes and Consequences of High Rates of Incarceration in America.” Study funded by the National Academy of Sciences, The MacArthur Foundation, and the National Institute of Justice. Washington, D.C. Ongoing, 18 month study.
Appointed Advisory Panel Member, The Future of Work Initiative. Open Society Institute. New York City, NY. 2014
Advisor: Center for Community Change. 2014
Editorial Board Member: Journal of Human and Civil Rights (University of Illinois Press). 2014
Serving on panel of experts writing position paper on rebuilding the labor movement for the AFL-CIO: “The Future of Worker Representation.” Report to be presented to the AFL-CIO leadership at National Convention 2014.
Appointed Editorial Board, Journal of Social Criminology. 2014
Appointed Advisory Panel Member, Life of the Law Project. 2013
Board Member, Prison Policy Initiative, 2012
Member, Scholars Strategy Network. http://www.scholarsstrategynetwork.org/
Appointed to Board of Contributing Editors, Labor: Studies in Working Class History of the Americas, 2012-2015
Committee Chair, Liberty Legacy Foundation Award for the best book by a historian on the civil rights struggle from the beginnings of the nation to the present. The Organization of American History. May 2013-May 2014.
Committee Member, Most Distinguished Scholarly Article Award Committee. Labor and Labor Movements Section, American Sociological Association. 2013.
Committee Member, Ellis Hawley Prize for best book on political institutions and political economy since the Civil War. The Organization of American Historians. May 2012-May 2013.
Committee Chair, Kenneth Jackson Award for Best Book in North American Urban History. Urban History Association, 2010.
Committee Member, Herbert Gutman Prize for Outstanding Dissertation. Labor and Working Class History Association, 2010-2011
Member, Board of Directors. Eastern State Penitentiary, a Historical Site. Philadelphia, PA. 2011-2015
Committee Chair, Nomination Committee. Southern Labor Studies Association, 2010-2011
President. Southern Labor Studies Association, 2007-2009
Appointed to Board of Contributing Editors, Labor: Studies in Working Class History of the Americas, 2006-2009
Appointed to Advisory Board,Wayne State University Press: “African American Life Series,” 2004
Elected to Board of Directors, Urban History Association. January, 2003
Elected to Board of Directors, Labor and Working Class History Association. October, 2002
PROFESSIONAL MEMBERSHIPS:
The Society of American Historians
The American Historical Association
The American Studies Association
TheAssociation for the Study of African American Life and History
The Labor and Working Class Studies Association
The National Council of Black Studies
The Organization of American Historians
The Social Science History Association (Criminal Justice Network)
The Southern Historical Association
The Southern Labor Studies Association
The Urban History Association
INVITED TALKS/PANELS (Selected):
Invited Lecture. “On the Ugly 80s: Rethinking Contemporary Police Violence, White Vigilantism, and their Contested Reckonings.” Collegiate Professorship Lectures. The University of Michigan. March 11, 2024
Guest Speaker. Carr Center for Human Rights. Harvard Kennedy School. November 17, 2023
Guest Speaker. Grand Valley State University. Grand Rapids, MI. October 5, 2023
Guest Speaker. Brown University. Providence, RI. September 29, 2023
Guest Speaker. Queens University. Belfast, Ireland. September 15, 2023.
Guest Speaker. Trinity Church. New York City. September 10, 2023
Guest Speaker. NYU Cities Collaborative. Institute on Urbanism. Madrid, Spain. May 21-31, 2023
Invited Lecture. “Unmaking (and Remaking) the Motor City in the Age of Mass Incarceration.” The Detroit Historical Society. May 11, 2023
Invited Lecture. Why Attica Matters. Center for Social Concerns. University of Notre Dame. February 10, 2023Guest Speaker. "Police Violence: The Law, History, and Future Reform.” University of Michigan Law School. February 8, 2023.
Guest Lecture. “The Philadelphia Police and the Long History of the 1985 Bombing of MOVE: Writing the Past in the Vortex of Present.” The Eisenburg Center, University of Michigan, 1/27/2023
Invited Keynote. American Trial Lawyers Association. Rome, Italy. September 17, 2022
Ridenhour Fireside Chat. America Bans Books. June 30, 2022
Discussion with Evelyn Hammonds. “Pandemics and Prison.” Hutchins Center for African American Studies. Center for the Study of Race, Gender, Science and Medicine. Harvard University. 2021 Speaker. Attica is All of Us. Unitarian Universalist Church Forum. Kansas City. November, 2021
Invited Lecture. The Burdens of History: The Dizzying Power of the Past on the Present. John Hope Franklin Lecture Series. University of Chicago. October 28, 2021
Invited Speaker. Attica, The Documentary (with Stanley Nelson). CUNY. October 21, 2021.
Invited Speaker. Then and Now, Attica at 50. The Liman Center. Yale University. September 14, 2021
Moderator. Attica at 50 NYC Forum. (1:58.57) September 13, 2021.
Invited Speaker. Remembering Attica at the 50th Anniversary. Justice Talks. Sing Sing Museum. July 21, 2021
Invited Speaker. Discussion with Evelyn Hammonds. “Pandemics and Prison.” Hutchins Center For African American Studies. Center for the Study of Race, Gender, Science and Medicine. Harvard University.
Invited Speaker, Higher Ground Journeys. December 17, 2020
Invited Speaker, Police Violence From the Black Panthers to Attica. December 16, 2020
Invited Speaker, Making a Community Safer. October 18, 2020.
Moderator, Living on LOP. October 22, 2020
Invited Speaker, Covid and Prisons. National Lawyers Guild Convention. September 22, 2020
Invited Speaker. Roundtable. Reimagining Safety: Policing, Abolition, and the Future of Democracy. The Square One Justice Project. Columbia University. July 21, 2020.
Panelist. “A Conversation on Tulsa and the Long History of Dispossession of African Americans: What We Don’t Know.” The Weatherhead Initiative on Global History. Harvard University. June 16, 2020.
Panelist. Urban Uprisings Against and Police. Urban History Association. July 7, 2020
Speaker. Stopping Police Violence, June 3, 2020
Invited Lecture. What Has to Happen after the Protests. University of Michigan Media.
Invited Lecture. Pitt Professor Inaugural Lecture. American Prison Uprisings and Why they Matter Today. Cambridge University. UK. February 5, 2020
Invited Speaker. The Space of Praxis. Columbia Center for Contemporary Critical Thought. May 9, 2019
Invited Speaker. Prison Rebellion and Prison Reform. University of Virginia Law School. May 7, 2019.
Invited Speaker. Slavery, Race, Revolutionary Abolitionism Yesterday and Today. Collège d’études mondiales/FMSH. Fondation Maison des sciences de l’homme. May 17, 2017
Invited Speaker Speaker. Why Mass Incarceration Matters. New York University. April 21, 2016
Keynote speaker. Inner City Violence in the Age of Mass Incarceration. Central Washington University. April 14, 2016
Guest Speaker. Social Justice, Fostering Humanity. Redeeming the American City Symposium. University of Michigan Law School. March 11, 2016
Guest Speaker. Why Mass Incarceration Matters. Harvard University, Kennedy School. March 9, 2016
Guest Speaker. Why Mass Incarceration Matters in the Field of American History. The University of Zurich. Zurich, Switzerland. February 28, 2016
Keynote speaker. Mass Incarceration. 36th Annual Marion Wright Thompson Lectures. Rutgers University, Newark. February 20, 2016
Guest Speaker. Why Mass Incarceration Matters. Tarleton State University. February 11, 2016
Guest Speaker. Why Mass Incarceration Matters. University of Texas, Arlington. February 10, 2016
Keynote Speaker. Inner City Violence in the Age of Mass Incarceration. Osher Life Long Learning. Violence in America series. University of Michigan. January 26, 2016
Guest Speaker, Civil Rights and the Carceral State in the Clinton Years. Old State House. Little Rock, Arkansas. November 17, 2015
Guest Speaker. Why Mass Incarceration Matters. The University of Toronto. Toronto, Ontario. November 2, 2015.
Guest Speaker, Women and Mass Incarceration. Roundtable for Piper Kerman’s Shaw Lecture. The University of Michigan. October 12, 2015
Congressional Staff Briefing on Mass Incarceration. Washington, DC. October 9, 2015
Guest Speaker, Why Mass Incarceration Matters to North Carolina. North Carolina Commission on Racial and Ethnic Issues. October 1, 2015
Guest Speaker. Engaging Race: The Carter G. Woodson Forum on Violence, Citizenship, and Social Justice. University of Virginia. August 27, 2015
Keynote Speaker: Legislator Forum. Straight Talk on Crime and Punishment. The Riley Institute. Furman University. July 21, 2015
Keynote Speaker, “The Resilience of White Privilege in the United States since the New Deal” Eberhard Karls University Tuebingen, Germany. June 8, 2015
Guest Speaker, “The American Carceral State: Rethinking Exception and Rule.” Cambridge University. Cambridge, UK. May 15, 2015.
Guest Speaker, “Mass Incarceration in America: The New Global Regime?” University of Zurich. Zurich, Switzerland. May 13, 2015
Guest Speaker, Collins College. Plano, Texas. April 10, 2015
Guest Speaker, Texas Christian University. Ft. Worth, Texas. April 8-9, 2015
Guest Speaker, Policing Race. Police Profiling: Causes and Consequences. Center for Race and Ethnicity and Center for Public Policy. Brown University. March 10, 2015
Guest Speaker, A History of Penal Regimes in Global Perspective, 1800-2015. Symposium. Harvard University. March 5-7 2015
Guest Speaker, “Why Mass Incarceration Matters.” The University of Hawaii, Manoa. February 27-March 3, 2015.
Guest Speaker, “Capitalism and the Carceral State.” Histories of American Capitalism Conference. Cornell University. November 8, 2014
Guest Speaker. The Politics of Mass Incarceration in the Age of Retribution.” The Scope of Slavery: Enduring Geographies of American Bondage Conference. Charles Warren Center for Studies in American History, Harvard University November 7, 2014.
Guest Speaker. Symposium on Inequality. Washington University. St. Louis, MO. October 24, 2014.
Guest Speaker, “Fighting a War on Poverty and Waging a War on Crime: Rethinking the Welfare State/Carceral State Divide.” War on Poverty Symposium. University of Pennsylvania. September 19, 2014.
Guest Speaker, “Distorting Democracy in the Age of Mass Incarceration.” Lycoming College. September 16, 2014.
Guest Speaker, “Why History Matters to Current Incarceration Crisis.” Congressional Briefing. Senate Judiciary Committee. September 12, 2014
Guest Speaker, “Causes and Consequences of High Rates of Incarceration.” Briefing. John Jay College. September 4, 2014.
Guest Speaker, Summer Institute on Inequality. University of Pennsylvania. June 20, 2014.
Guest Speaker, “Learning from Detroit: Turbulent Urbanism in the 21st Century.” Conference. The University of Michigan. May 29-30, 2014
Guest Speaker, “Why Mass Incarceration Matters to our Democracy.” Interfaith Organizing Initiative, Summit on the Intersection of Criminalization and Race. Chicago, Illinois. May 8-9, 2014
Guest Speaker, “Race, Law, and the American State,” Symposium. The University of Michigan School of Law. April 26, 2014
Keynote Speaker. Towson University. April 24, 2014.
Guest Speaker. Yale University. April 8, 2014.
Guest Speaker. Rutgers University, Camden. April 2, 2014.
Opening Speaker. Breaking Down the Walls. School of Social Work. University of Pennsylvania. March 29, 2014.
Keynote Speaker, College of Saint Rose. Albany, NY. March 20, 2014.
Guest Speaker. Yale University. March 19, 2014.
Guest Speaker. University of Maryland, College Park. March 13, 2013.
Guest Speaker. UCLA Institute for Research and Employment’s 2014 conference: “Race, Labor and the Law.” February 28, 2014
Guest Speaker. Connecticut College. February 24, 2014.
Keynote Speaker. “Racial Formation, Racial Blindness.” Conference. Department of History, University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee. February 14, 2014
Guest Lecturer. “The Moral and Ethical Costs of Mass Incarceration in America.” The Ethical Humanist Society of Philadelphia. February 9, 2014.
Guest Speaker. Forum on Mass Incarceration. Muhlenburg College. January 23, 2014.
Keynote Speaker. ““Lock Up America: Why Mass Incarceration Matters To our Cities, our Economy, and our Democracy.” Searchlight Lecture Series. Eastern State Penitentiary. January 7, 2014.
Guest Speaker, Department of History, Oxford University, Oxford, England. November 19, 2013
Guest Speaker, Department of History, University of East Anglia, Norwich, England. November 14 2013
Guest Speaker, Department of History, Cambridge University, Cambridge, England. November 11, 2013
Keynote Speaker, Pennsylvania History Association Annual Conference. Gettysburg, PA. October 19, 2013
Guest Speaker, Department of History, Auburn University, Alabama. September 24, 2013.
Keynote Speaker. Conference: The American Racial State in the Long 20th Century. The University of Michigan. May 10, 2013.
Guest Speaker, “Criminal Justice Today.” The Friends of the St. Paul Public Library. April 30, 2013. St. Paul, Minnesota.
Guest Speaker. Murphy Institute, Labor Breakfast. CUNY. New York, New York. April 19, 2013
Guest Speaker, “Why Mass Incarceration Matters to All of Us, and What We Can Do About It.” Public Forum. The Duke Human Rights Center, The Sanford Public Policy School, Duke University. March 25, 2013.
Guest Speaker. “Attica, Attica, Attica! From the Possibilities of Prisoner Rebellion to the Problem of Punitive Justice Policy.” Duke University. March 25, 2013.
Visiting Scholar Lecture. “The Costs of the Carceral State.” The Havens Center. University of Wisconsin, Madison. February 19, 2013.
Guest Lecture. “Distorting Democracy: Rethinking Politics and Power in the Age of Mass Incarceration.” University of Wisconsin, Madison. February 20, 2013.
Guest Speaker, “Lock Up America: Why Mass Incarceration Matters To our Cities, our Economy, and our Democracy.” Bucknell University. February 13, 2013
Keynote Speaker, “Unmaking the Motor City in the Age of Mass Incarceration.” For the Detroit School Lecture Series. Regional and Urban Planning. The University of Michigan. February 8, 2013
Guest Speaker. James E. Beasley School of Law, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA. January 30, 2013
Speaker, “Costs and Consequences of the Carceral State.” Symposium on Mass Incarceration. Tyler Art School. Temple University. November 27, 2012
Guest Speaker, “Prisons and the Politics of Punitive Justice Policy: Civil Rights and the 21st Century.” University of Mary Washington. October 24, 2012
Keynote Speaker. “Urban and Labor Affairs in a Time of Mass Incarceration.” The North American Labor History Conference. Wayne State University. Detroit, MI. October 18, 2012
Keynote Speaker.”Which Way Detroit? From Struggles for Civil Rights to the Crisis of Criminalization” University of Michigan, Dearborn. October 17, 2012.
Keynote Speaker. “Why Mass Incarceration Matters to Postwar Urban History.” Urban History Association. Annual Luncheon at Organization of American Historians Meeting.Milwaukee, Wisconsin. April 18-20, 2012
Guest Speaker, “From Researching the Past to Reimagining the Future: Confronting the Crisis of Mass Incarceration.” Symposium: A Beautiful Struggle: Transformative Black Studies in Shifting Political Landscapes, A Summit of Doctoral Programs. Northwestern University. Chicago, Illinois. April 12-April 14, 2012.
Guest Speaker, “Mass Incarceration and the Unmaking of Postwar America.” American History Workshop. University of California, Los Angeles. April 5, 2012.
Guest Speaker, “Rescuing and Remember Attica,” The New School. New York, New York. March 29, 2012.
Guest Speaker, “Why Mass Incarceration Matters to Social Workers.” Columbia University School of Social Work. February 26, 2012.
Guest Speaker, “Ending Today’s Carceral Crisis: Lessons from History.” Confronting The Carceral State: Activists, Scholars and the Exonerated Speak: A Symposium.Black Studies Program of the City College. New York City. February 14, 2012.
Guest Speaker, “From the White House to the State House to the Row House: Recasting the American Nation through the Politics of Punishment.” University of Sussex. Brighton, UK. February 10, 2012.
Guest Speaker, “Rethinking the American South and its Historical Legacy in the Age of Mass Incarceration” Queens University, Belfast, Ireland. February 8, 2012
Guest Speaker, “”Locked Up and Shut Out: Black Women and America’s (not so) Hidden Carceral Crisis” Queens University, Belfast, Ireland. February 6, 2012
Guest Speaker, “Debating Mass Incarceration and the “New Jim Crow.”Symposium.From Black Modern to Post Blackness: A Retrospective Look at Identity. Rutgers Center for Historical Analysis. November 9-11, 2011.
Guest Speaker, “Lock Up America: Rethinking our Nation’s Past and Present in the Age of Mass Incarceration” University of Wisconsin. Green Bay. Thursday, September 22,2011.
Guest Speaker, “Attica: Why it Matters.” Conference. 40 Years after the Attica Uprising: Looking Back, Moving Forward. University at Buffalo Law School, The Baldy Center for Law & Social Policy Monday, September 12 & Tuesday 13, 2011
Guest Speaker, “The Imprisonment of a Race.” One-day Conference. Princeton University. March 25, 2011.
Guest Speaker, “Race, Injustice, and the Challenge of Mass Incarceration for America’s Inner Cities.” Social Justice, Race and Profiling: An Intergenerational Think Tank. Social Justice Institute. Case Western Reserve University. November 19-20, 2010.
Keynote Speaker. “Redemption Redux? Southern Politics, Economy, and Society in the Age of Mass Incarceration.” 2010 Lecture Southern Association for Women Historians. The Southern Historical Association Annual Meeting. Charlotte, NC. November 4-7, 2010
Guest Speaker. “Commodifying Punishment in the American South: The Industry and Labor Consequences of making Crime Pay, 1970-Present.” Joint Luncheon of the Southern Industrialization Project (SIP) and the Southern Labor Studies Association (SLSA). Southern Historical Association Annual Meeting. Louisville, Kentucky. November, 2009.
Guest Speaker. “America’s Second Prison Crisis: Locating the Origins of Today’s Race to Incarcerate, and the Key to its End, in the Long 20th Century.” The University of Virginia’s Carter G. Woodson Institute symposium, The Problem of Punishment: Race, Inequality, and Justice. April 16-17, 2009
Guest Speaker. “Rewriting the American Civil Rights Movement: Black Activism Behind Bars and its Legacy.” Conference. The Long Civil Rights Movement and the Future of Scholarship.” Sponsored by the Southern Oral History Project.University of North Carolina Chapel Hill. April 2-3, 2009.
Guest Speaker. “The Attica Uprising of 1971 and the Creation of the Carceral State: Toward a Rethinking of the Fall of the Labor Movement and the Rise of the Right.” Center for the Study of Work, Labor, and Democracy. University of California,Santa Barbara. February 6, 2009.
Opening Plenary Participant. Cosponsored by the Center for Contemporary Black History at Columbia University: “Storm Warnings: Rethinking 1968, “The Year that Shook the World”. Fellow participants: Manning Marable, Peniel Joseph, Tom Sugrue, Michael Kazin, Jeremy Suri. Organization of American Historians Annual Meeting. March, 2008.
Guest Speaker. “From Romanticizing and Remembering to Researching and Reassessing: Rethinking the Attica Uprising of 1971 and the Legacies of Black Power.” 2nd Annual Conference, “New Perspectives in African American History and Culture.” UNC-Chapel Hill. April 12, 2008
Guest Speaker. “Spinning Rebellion: The Attica Prison Uprising, the Media, and the (Mis)Shaping of Working-Class Politics in Post-1970s United States.” Youngstown State University Center for Working-Class Studies 13th Annual Lecture Series 2007-2008. February 26, 2008.
Guest Speaker. The “Malcolm Lester Lecture” at Davidson University. September 26, 2007
Guest Speaker. “The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and its Legacy: Rescuing Prisoner Rights and Rethinking the Nation’s Prison Crisis.”University of California, Berkeley. Boalt School of Law. September 13, 2007
Guest Speaker, “Why History Matters: the Attica Prison Uprising of 1971, Prisoner Rights, and Justice Policy Today.” The Open Society Institute, Soros Justice Fellows Annual Meeting.New Orleans. June 12, 2007
Guest Speaker, “The Perilous Path from the Past to the Present: Rethinking the Current State of Justice Policy in America.” Sanford Institute for Public Policy.Duke University. April 25, 2007.
Guest Speaker, “Attica: The Civil Rights Movement Behind Bars and its Legacy.”University of North Carolina at Greensboro. March 1, 2007
Guest Speaker, “The Attica Uprising of 1971: From Civil Rights Dreams to Prison Policy Nightmares.Wake Forest University.February 28, 2007.
Guest Speaker, “Attica: The Civil Rights Movement Behind Bars.”Rutgers University. October 26, 2006
Guest Speaker, “No Truth, No Justice: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and the Politics of the Ironic in Postwar America.”Princeton University. Modern America Workshop. October 25, 2006
Guest Speaker, “The Attica Uprising of 1971: Rescuing the Past and Reclaiming the Future.” The University of Pennsylvania Law School. October 16, 2006.
Guest Speaker, “Attica! Attica! Attica!: Rebellion, Reaction, and the Legacy of Truths Untold” The University of Michigan. September 21, 2006.
Guest Panelist. “Getting at Black Power History Sideways and Upside down: New Approaches to, and Understandings of, the Movement.” Metropolitan History Workshop. The University of Michigan. September 22, 2006.
Guest Speaker. “Rethinking Prison Conditions and Prisoner Abuse in Modern America: Toward a Labor History of Inmates and Guards.” Annual Luncheon of the Labor and Working Class History Association. The Organization of American Historians Annual Meeting.Washington,D.C. April, 2006.
Guest Speaker. “Blinded by the ‘Barbaric’ South: Prison Horrors, Inmate Abuse and the Ironic History of Penal Reform in the Postwar United States.” Conference: “The End of Southern History? Integrating the Modern South and the Nation.”Emory University. March 23-24, 2006
Guest Speaker: “Rage, Activism and Power: African Americans and the Remaking of the Motor City, 1945-1975.” 10th Anniversary Celebration. Center for African American Urban Studies and the Economy (CAUSE). September, 2005
Guest Speaker. “What Happened to Detroit?” Spotlight on Research Television Lecture Series. March 6, 2003
Guest Speaker. “Detroit Politics in the Sixties and Seventies: Tumultuous Past, Contested Legacy” The Institute for Detroit Studies. February 13, 2003
Guest Speaker. “Firing Up the Motor City: Polarization and Possibility in Detroit’s Auto Plants, 1965-1975. Eastern Michigan University Heritage Lecture Series 2003. February 12, 2003
Guest Speaker. “Southern Migrants and the Transformation of Shopfloors Politics in Detroit.” The 1999 Commonwealth Fund Conference, “Two Souths: Towards an Agenda for Comparative Study of the American South and the Italian Mezzogiorno.”London, England. January, 1999
Guest Speaker. “The Fight for Freedom on the Streets and Shopfloors of Postwar Detroit.” The Smithsonian Institution, Program in African American Culture Conference, “The African American Freedom Struggle in the Midwest.”Chicago,Illinois. October, 1998
Guest Speaker. “The Urban Impact of Restructuring in the Auto Industry: the Case of Detroit.” The International Seminar on Economic and Social Development in the Greater ABC Region.Sao Paulo,Brazil. May, 1997
PAPERS PRESENTED/ROUNDTABLE PARTICIPATION:
Roundtable. The Clintons. Southern Historical Association. Little Rock, AK. November, 2015
Roundtable. The Current State of Carceral State History. The Organization of American Historians Meeting. St. Louis, MO 2015
Roundtable. The Crisis of the 1970s. The American Historical Association Annual Meeting. New York City. January, 2015
Roundtable. Understanding the Protests in Ferguson. The American Historical Association Annual Meeting. New York City. January, 2015
Roundtable. “The Carceral State.” Social Science History Association. Toronto, Canada. November 6, 2014.
Roundtable. “Urban Cities in the Global Age.” Urban History Association Annual Meeting. October 12, 2014. Philadelphia, PA.
Roundtable. “Mass Incarceration in America.” The Association for African American Life and History. Memphis, Tennessee. September 26, 2014.
Roundtable Participant. Film Screening: “Criminal Injustice: Death and Politics at Attica.” Organization of American Historians Annual Meeting. San Francisco, CA. April, 2013
Roundtable Participant. “State of the Field: Historians and the Carceral State.” Organization of American Historians Annual Meeting. San Francisco, CA. April, 2013
Roundtable Participant. Film Screening: “Criminal Injustice: Death and Politics at Attica.” American Historical Association Annual Meeting. New Orleans, LA. 2013
Roundtable Participant. State of the Field: Carceral State and Prison Studies.” American Studies Association Annual Meeting. Puerto Rico. November, 2012
Panelist. “Criminalizing the Kids: Rethinking Poor Performance and Choice in America’s Urban Schools.” Conference. Society for American City and Regional Planning History (SACRPH). Baltimore, MD. November 17-20, 2011.
Panelist. “Why Mass Incarceration Matters: Rethinking Crisis, Decline, and Transformation in Postwar American History.” Symposium. Historians and the Carceral State: Writing Policing and Punishment into Modern U.S. History.” Rutgers University. March 5, 2009.
Panelist. “What do Prisons have to do with the fall of the Auto Industry?” Roundtable Participant. North American Labor History Association Annual Meeting. Detroit, Michigan. October, 2009.
Panelist. “Leading the Movement from Behind Bars: Rewriting the Struggle for Racial Equality in the United States 1965-1975.” Panel title: “Student Protests”? The U.S., West Germany, and Poland in the 1960s-70s. American Historical Association Annual Meeting. New York City. January 2009.
Roundtable Participant. “On Trial Decades Later: The American Civil Rights Movement, Memory, and the Politics of Retrospective Justice.” Social Science History Association Annual Meeting.Chicago. November, 2007
Roundtable Participant. “Seeing the Forest Not Just the Trees: Towards a Synthetic History of Urban and Suburban Development in Postwar America.” New Directions in Urban and Suburban History. Pacific Coast Branch. American Historical Association. August 5, 2006.
Panelist. “Attica: Rebellion, Murder, and Justice Deferred.” The Organization of American Historians Annual Meeting.Washington,D.C. April, 2006
Roundtable Participant. “Writing Attica Anew and Again.” Race, Roots, & Resistance: Revisiting the Legacies of Black Power Conference. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. March 30-April 1, 2006.
Roundtable participant. “New Directions in the Study of Black Power: From Oakland to Attica.” Annual Meeting Association for the Study of African American Life and History.Buffalo,New York. October 5-9, 2005.
Roundtable participant. “Radical Labor Activism: From Past to Present.” The Southwest Labor Studies Association Meeting.Santa Barbara,California. May 5, 2005
Panelist. “Beyond ‘Urban Crisis': Reexamining the political legacy of the Sixties in America’s inner cities.” Society for American Cityand Regional Planning History.St. Louis,Missouri. November 6, 2003
Roundtable Participant. “Global Politics and the American Labor Movement.” The North American Labor History Conference.Detroit,Michigan. October 16, 2003.
Roundtable Participant. “Autoworkers in the 1950s,” The North American Labor History Conference. October 17-19, 2002.Detroit,Michigan.
Panelist. “The Language of ‘Black Manhood’ and Worker Activism on Detroit’s Shop floors: 1968-1971,” The European Social Science History Association Meeting.Amsterdam,Netherlands. April 12-16, 2000
Panelist. “The Radical Roots of the Black Liberal Ascendancy.” The American Historical Association Annual Meeting.Chicago,Illinois. January, 2000
Panelist. “’A Ruling without Reason'; Black Militancy, Legal Liberalism, and White Disaffection with the Motor City, 1969-1973.” Social Science History Association. Twenty-first Annual Meeting.New Orleans,Louisiana. October, 1996
Panelist. “Detroit Scholarship: Future Directions.” Roundtable Discussion Participant. The Eighteenth Annual North American Labor History Conference. Wayne State University. Detroit,Michigan. October, 1996
Panelist. “Rethinking the Politics of White Flight in the Postwar City:Detroit, 1945-1980.” The Center for Recent United States History Conference–Contested Terrain: The Transformation of Postwar Political Culture, 1945-1955. The University of Iowa. April 20, 1996
Panelist. “Work Stoppages, Auto Worker Militancy and the State: the United States and Canada, 1950-1980.” The Seventeenth Annual North American Labor History Conference,Wayne State University.Detroit,Michigan, 1995
Panelist. “The Disease of Racism: An African American’s ‘Insanity’ and Institutionalization.” The American Historical Association.Chicago,Illinois. January, 1995
Panelist. “Another War At Home: Autoworkers and Their Foremen on the Shop Floors of Detroit, 1963-1973.” The State Historical Society of Wisconsin Conference, “Towards a History of the 1960s.”Madison,Wisconsin. April, 1993
CONFERENCE COMMENT/CHAIR:
Chair of Session entitled, “Gender and Southern Prisons.” Southern Association of Women Historians. June 11-14, 2015. Charleston, South Carolina.
Chair of session entitled, “Genealogies of the Carceral State: Crime Policy, Crisis, Race, and Resistance in Twentieth-Century America.” American Historical Association Annual Meeting. New Orleans, LA. January 2012.
Comment on session entitled,“From the War on Poverty to the War on Crime: The Rise of Punitive Policy at the Federal, State, and Local Levels.” Organization of American Historians Annual Meeting. Milwaukee, WI. April, 2011.
Chair and comment on session entitled, “Desegregating Backlash: Liberals and African Americans in the Making of Modern Conservatism.” Organization of American Historians Annual Meeting. Milwaukee, WI. April, 2011
Chair of session entitled, “Exploring Political Networks in the Post-Civil Rights Era.” American Historical Association Annual Meeting. Chicago, IL. January 2012.
Chair of session entitled, “”Black Children and Boundaries of Innocence, 1896-1968: Gendered Criminalization, Training ‘Productive’ Future Citizens, and Rural Hosting Programs as Sites of Racial Transformation.” 96th Annual Convention of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH). October 5-October 9, 2011. Richmond, Virginia.
Chair of session entitled, “Politics and Policy in the Post-Civil Rights City.” American Historical Association Annual Meeting. January 6-9, 2011. Boston, Massachusetts.
Chair of session entitled, “Suburban Diversity, Civic Identity, and Racialized Politics in Postwar America.” Organization of American Historians Annual Meeting. April 7-10, 2010. Washington, DC. Chair and Comment of session entitled, “Forced Labor in the South after Slavery: the Longue Duree.” Conference on Race, Labor and Citizenship in the Post-Emancipation South College of Charleston, March 11-13, 2010
Chair of session entitled: “Rethinking the 1970s” the Long Civil Rights Movement in the Decade of Political Realignment. American Historical Association Annual Meeting. January 7-10, 2010.
Comment on papers read at session entitled “Struggles for Economic Justice in the post-1960s American South” Organization of American Historians Annual Meeting. March 26-29, 2009.
Chair of session entitled: “Reinventing Urbanity in Post-WWII America.” Urban History Association Meeting.Houston,Texas. November 5-8, 2008.
Chair of session entitled: “Urban Renewal across the Regional Divide: American Values and Redevelopment Practices in Post-World War Two American Cities.” The Organization of American Historians Annual Meeting.Memphis,Tennessee. March 29-April 1, 2007
Comment on papers read at session entitled, “Culture and Civil Rights in the Sixties and Seventies.” The Organization of American Historians Annual Meeting.Memphis,Tennessee. April 3-6, 2003
Comment on papers read at session entitled, “Breaking the Mold: Gender, Class, Region, Race and Union Organization: White Collar Workers and Class Identity in the Twentieth Century.” The Twenty-Third Annual North American Labor History Conference.Wayne State University.Detroit,Michigan. October 2001.
Comment on papers read at session entitled, White Collar Workers and Class Identity in the Twentieth Century.” The Twenty-Second Annual North American Labor History Conference. Wayne State University.Detroit,Michigan. October 2000.
Comment on papers read at session, entitled, “Made in Detroit: Local Histories, Local Politics.” The American Studies Association.Detroit,Michigan. October 2000
Chair of session entitled, “New Perspectives on the New Deal.” The Graduate History Forum. University of North Carolina at Charlotte.Charlotte,North Carolina. March 22, 2000.
Chair of session entitled, “Working Class Narratives from the Post-IndustrialCity.” The Twenty-First Annual North American Labor History Conference.Wayne State University. Detroit, Michigan. October, 1999
Comment on papers read at session entitled, “New Thoughts on the 1960s.” The Organization of American Historians Annual Meeting.Toronto,Ontario. April 22-24, 1999