Photo Credit: Navy B. Rae Photography

I am a writer and historian who studies what happened to African American survivors of racist violence. 

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About Me

I’m from West Michigan, by way of Illinois, Arkansas, Mississippi, and South Carolina. The Continent. I live and work in Detroit.

My new book, I Saw Death Coming: A History of Terror and Survival in the War against Reconstruction  tells the story of what African American families gained at emancipation and then lost to white terror after the Civil War. It is available everywhere, from Bookshop; Barnes and Noble; Indiebound; Books A Million!;  Source Booksellers; and Amazon to your public library through Audible. My first book, They Left Great Marks on Me, explored Black people’s personal testimonies of violence and their role in mobilizing civil rights advocates to fight lynching and other forms of white supremacist oppression. I am also one of the co-editors of Charleston Syllabus: Readings on Race, Racism, and Racial Violence, a collection of readings that provided historical context for understanding the 2015 massacre of nine African Americans at Charleston’s Emanuel A.M.E. Church. 

My writings have appeared in DAME magazine, Slate, The American Historian, and the New York Times. I have appeared on NPR’s “Morning Edition” and “On Point,” “BackStory with the American History Guys,” and on WDET’s “Detroit Today.”

My interest in producing stories of African American history that reach academic and lay audiences has grown in recent years and been rewarded. I was one of the co-developers of #CharlestonSyllabus. I’ve had the great fortune of contributing to podcasts and to documentaries, both behind the scenes like on TLC’s  “Who Do You Think You Are?”: Regina King and up front with PBS’s Reconstruction: America after the Civil War. I’m the host and co-producer of ‘Seizing Freedom’  (created by Kelly Hardcastle Jones) a podcast docudrama about African Americans’ fight for liberty and equality during and after the Civil War.

When I am not working, I’m minding my business and indulging my love of fiction, photography, podcasts, and streaming international TV shows while also taking advantage of the many perks of living and playing in Detroit.