Dr. William Sturkey

Affiliated Faculty University of North Carolina

William Sturkey photo

Dr. William Sturkey, University of North Carolina

Dr. William Sturkey is a historian of the post-1865 United States who specializes in the history of race in the American South. Most of his research centers the experiences of working-class people of color. He teaches courses on Modern American History, Southern History, the Civil Rights Movement, and the History of America in the 1960s. His first book, To Write in the Light of Freedom, is a co-edited collection of newspapers, essays, and poems produced by African American Freedom School students during the Mississippi Freedom Summer of 1964. His second book, Hattiesburg: An American City in Black and White, is a biracial history of Southern Jim Crow that Harvard University Press published in March of 2019. Dr. Sturkey’s articles and essays have also appeared in numerous venues, including The Journal of African American HistoryThe AtlanticWashington Post, and New York Times