LATEST WORK
“A powerful counter to the assumption that the term working class refers only to Whites…A well-researched, engaging, corrective American history.”
-Kirkus Reviews
“Brings a dazzling blend of compassion, storytelling, and deep research to a subject that is vital to anyone aiming to understand the future direction of American politics and the nation itself.”
-Martha S. Jones
Author of Vanguard: How Black Women broke barriers, won the vote, and Insisted on Equality for All
“Black Folk is at once a love song, a blues, and an epic account of the Black working class in the United States. By tracing the roots of the Black working class, Kelley reveals the history of the whole nation.”
-Robin D.G. Kelley
Author of Freedom Dreams: the Black Radical Imagination
“Black Folk is a revelation, indeed one of the most important works of history to come across my desk in a long time...”
-Michael eric Dyson
Publication SpotLight
Right to Ride: Streetcar Boycotts and African American Citizenship in the Era of Plessy V. Ferguson
John Hope Franklin Series in African American History and Culture, University of North Carolina Press, 2010
Peer-reviewed publications
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Chapter, Black Education and Bearing the Burden of Separate but Equal
The New History of the American South, eds. W. Fitzhugh Brundage, Laura F. Edwards, Jon F. Sensbach, Ferris and Ferris, University of North Carolina Press, May 2023, pp. 337-358.
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Chapter, “Silencing a Generation,”
Journalism and Jim Crow: White Supremacy and the Black Struggle for a New America, eds. Sid Bedingfield and Kathy Forde, University of Illinois Press, November 2021, pp. 285-304. (Finalist for the 2022 American Journalism Historians Association Book Award)
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Essay, “Plessy v. Ferguson,”
400 Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019, eds. Ibram X. Kendi and Keisha N. Blain, New York: One World/Random House, February 2021, pp. 258-261. (#1 New York Times Bestseller, Finalist for the Andrew Carnegie Medal)
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Right to Ride: Streetcar Boycotts and African American Citizenship in the Era of Plessy v. Ferguson
John Hope Franklin Series in African American History and Culture, University of North Carolina Press, 2010.
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“The Historiography of the Black South: From Reconstruction to Jim Crow”
In Reinterpreting Southern Histories, eds. Craig Thompson Friend and Lorri Glover, Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2020. 245 - 273.
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“Unabated Protest: African American Citizenship in the Era of Plessy v. Ferguson”
We The People: The United States and the Question of Rights, American Studies – A Monograph Series Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag, forthcoming Winter 2019.
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“International Civil Rights Center and Museum”
Journal of American History, Vol. 97, No. 3 December 2010, 752-756.
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“Right to Ride: African American Citizenship and Protest in the Era of Plessy v. Ferguson”
African American Review-Special Issue-Paul Lawrence Dunbar, Volume 41, Number 2, Summer 2007, 347-356.
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“Plessy v. Ferguson and Early Challenges to the Doctrine of Separate, But Equal”
From the Grassroots to the Supreme Court: Brown v. Board of Education and American Democracy, Peter F. Lau, ed., Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2004.
Selected public-facing publications
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“Biden has black voters' support over Sanders, and it's not because they're moderates”
NBC News, March 5, 2020.
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“Why Mike Bloomberg could win black voters' support as Joe Biden's candidacy falters”
NBC News, February 14, 2020.
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“What Civil Rights History Can Teach Kavanaugh’s Critics,”
New York Times, October 13, 2018.
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“If enslaved African Americans weren’t mentally strong there wouldn’t even be a Kanye West”
The Washington Post, May 3, 2018.
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“You Can’t Tell U.S. History Without Black History”
The Washington Post, September 25, 2016, B1.
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“Whatever Rachel Dolezal is doing, let’s not call it ‘passing’”
The Washington Post, June 16, 2015.
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“The History Behind that ‘Angry Black Woman’ Riff the NY Times Tossed Around”
TheRoot.com, September 25, 2014.
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“Like Dred Scott, Michael Brown was Denied his Right to Live-and to Live as an American”
TheRoot.com, August 14, 2014.
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“Shotgun Behind the Door: How Armed Black Southerners Helped Fight for Civil Rights”
TheRoot.com, June 5, 2014.
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“’The Case for Reparations’ Reignited an Important and Longstanding Debate”
TheRoot.com, May 24, 2014.
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“Remembering Pauli Murray—a Heroine who fought Jane Crow”
TheGrio.com, March 11, 2014.
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“A Brief History of Blackface”
TheGrio.com, October 30, 2013.
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“Trayvon Martin, Emmett Till, and the Shadow of Jim Crow Justice”
TheGrio.com, July 17, 2013.
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“The Price of ‘Django"
Ebony.com, January 14, 2013.