NCID-1691
Vincent D. Willis
Assistant Professor of Interdisciplinary Social Sciences
University of Alabama
Education/Degree:
1 Educational History (Emory University)
About
Vincent Willis is an assistant professor of interdisciplinary social sciences in New College with an appointment in gender and race studies at the University of Alabama. He earned his PhD in educational history from Emory University, a MA in African and African American studies from the Ohio State University, and a BA in African American studies from Morehouse College. He is a twentieth century educational historian with expertise on social movements that examine the relationship between legal decisions, race, social justice, and democracy. His research and teaching analyze how the dueling ideas of democracy profoundly shaped the history of public education and how those issues shape our contemporary understanding of educational equality.
Current Work
My forthcoming book, Audacious Agitation: Black Youth and the Uncompromising Commitment to Equal Education (under contract with the University of Georgia Press) along with peer-reviewed articles illustrate how the historical advocacy of Black youth represent their refusal to envision democracy as merely an abstraction. Instead, Black youth applied those ideals to their lived experiences as public-school students with hope of making public education more democratic. As my first manuscript comes to completion, my second research project, Exhaustive Defiance: Black Youth and the Persistent Quest to Democratizing Extracurricular Activities in Public Schools, 1964-1975, is already underway. This project aims to (re)construct a history of competing philosophies about the right to participate in extracurricular activities during the early phases of desegregation. Despite federal involvement, implementing deracialized extracurricular activities were arduous.
Research Area Keyword(s)
Citizenship, civil rights, educational equality, youth activism