Links
Research
My main research interests are in 20th Century US history, more specifically in the history of the modern US South, the African American civil rights and black power movements, and mass media and popular culture.
Publications
Books:
LATEST
BOOK!Radio and the Struggle for Civil Rights in the South (University Press of Florida, 2004).
NOW AVAILABLE
IN PAPERBACK!Media, Culture, and the Modern African American Freedom Struggle (University Press of Florida, 2001).
Just My Soul Responding: Rhythm and Blues, Black Consciousness and Race Relations (UCL Press/University of California Press, 1998).
The Making of Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights Movement (ed. with Tony Badger), (Macmillan/New York University Press, 1996).
Book Awards:
Radio and the Struggle for Civil Rights in the South was named a CHOICE Academic Book of the Year for 2004 by the American Library Assocation and won the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication's 2005 prize for the best book on the history of journalism and mass communication.
Media, Culture and the Modern African American Freedom Struggle received an “Honorable Mention” in the Gustavus Myers Center for the Study of Bigotry and Human Rights in North America Outstanding Book Awards for 2002.
In 1999, Just My Soul Responding won an American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation for outstanding literary achievement, and the James A. Rawley Prize from the Organization of American Historians for the best book on the history of US race relations. It was also named a CHOICE Academic Book of the Year by the American Library Assocation, listed as a Notable Book of the Year by the New York Times Book Review, was a Finalist in the Association of Recorded Sound Collections' Award for Excellence, and earned an “Honorable Mention” in the Gustavus Myers Center for the Study of Bigotry and Human Rights in North America Outstanding Book Awards. In 2000, the book was also awarded the European Association for American Studies' American Studies Network Prize for the best first book in American Studies.
Selected Articles:
"'By Elvis and All the Saints': Images of the American South in the World of 1950s British Popular Music," in Joseph P. Ward, (ed.), Britain and the American South: From Colonialism to Rock and Roll (University of Mississippi Press, 2003), pp.187-213
"From Prisoners of Love to Sex Machines: Sexual Politics and Civil Rights in Male Rhythm and Blues," in Peter Ling & Sharon Monteith, (eds), Gender in the Civil Rights Movement (Garland Press, 1999), pp. 41-68.
"Elvis, Martin and Mentors: The Making of Southern History in Britain," in Southern Cultures, 4, 4, (Winter 1998), pp.50-71.
"'Bringing The Races Closer'?: Black-oriented Radio in the South and the Civil Rights Movement," (with Jenny Walker), in R. King & H. Taylor, (eds), Dixie Debates: Perspectives on Contemporary Southern Cultures (Pluto/New York University Press, 1996), pp.130-149.
"A King in Newcastle: Martin Luther King Jr. and British Race Relations, 1967-1968," Georgia Historical Quarterly, LXXIX, 3, (Fall 1995), pp.599-632.
"Race, Politics and Culture: The Cole Incident of 1956," in R. Halpern and M. Stokes, (eds), Race and Class in the American South Since 1890 (Berg: Oxford, 1994), pp.181-208.
"History in the Grooves: Researching Popular Music on Record," Archives, XX, 87, (April 1992), pp.118-122.
Research in Progress:
I have three new book projects underway: the first examines links between the South and the history of British popular music, paying particular attention to issues of race, gender, religion and regional identity; the second deals with the history of the Southern Regional Council; the third looks at the role of the American Friends Service Committee in the southern civil rights movement.