David Cunningham | |
---|---|
Occupation | Sociologist |
Known for | Research on Ku Klux Klan |
Academic background | |
Education | University of Connecticut, BA, BS University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, M.A., Ph.D |
Academic work | |
Discipline | Sociology |
Sub-discipline | Social movements,white supremacy,race-based hate groups |
Institutions | Washington University in St. Louis Brandeis University |
Notable works | Klansville,U.S.A.:The Rise and Fall of the Civil Rights-Era Ku Klux Klan |
Website | https://sociology.wustl.edu/people/david-cunningham |
David Cunningham is a Professor and Chair of Sociology at Washington University in St. Louis. His scholarship includes social conflict,race-based hate groups,and social movements. [1] [2]
Cunningham attended University of Connecticut for his undergraduate academic career,studying civil engineering and English. In 1993,he graduated magna cum laude and as a university scholar from UConn and began pursuing a master's degree in sociology from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He received his M.A. in sociology in 1996 and his Ph.D in sociology in 2000. [3] His dissertation was on FBI Counterintelligence programs,which ended social movements that the FBI saw as threats to national security. [4]
Cunningham has written two books:Klansville,U.S.A.:The Rise and Fall of the Civil Rights-Era Ku Klux Klan (2013),which was the basis for the PBS American Experience documentary,Klansville USA, [3] and There’s Something Happening Here:The New Left,the Klan,and FBI Counterintelligence (2004). [3] [5]
From 1999 to 2015,Cunningham was a professor at Brandeis University. From 2008 to 2015,he served as the Chair of the Social Justice and Social Policy program at Brandeis,and from 2012 to 2015,he served as Chair of the Sociology Department. [3] In 2015,he became one of the three inaugural faculty members to reestablish the sociology department at Washington University in St. Louis,along with Adia Harvey Wingfield and Jake Rosenfeld. [1]
He has been featured and interviewed for numerous publications and news sources including: The New York Times , [6] The Washington Post , [7] PBS, [8] CBS News,and NPR. [9]
He is also a prolific writer and reviewer,and he has published dozens of pieces in both academic and news publications,which are frequently on the KKK. Some of these pieces include:his 2016 opinion article in The Washington Post :"Five myths about the Ku Klux Klan"; [10] his co-authored 2014 journal article "Political Polarization as a Social Movement Outcome:1960s Klan Activism and Its Enduring Impact on Political Realignment in Southern Counties,1960 to 2000" in the American Sociological Review; [11] and his 2005 article in The Boston Globe :"All the Klan's men". [12]
Cunningham has also served as a consultant in many capacities. He has worked as an academic consultant for WGBH Educational Foundation and Facing History and Ourselves;was a consulting expert for Moore et al. v. Franklin County,MS and Averill et al. v. City of Seattle; and has been a research collaborator for the Civil Rights and Restorative Justice Project at Northeastern University School of Law for over ten years,the Mississippi Truth Project,and the Greensboro Truth and Reconciliation Commission. [13] He also was a consulting expert for the American Civil Liberties Union for two years,providing expert testimony in a case against the Denver Police Department looking at the impact of police surveillance. [13]
Cunningham has held various leadership positions in his academic career,including current Chair of the Department of Sociology at Washington University in St. Louis and former Chair of the Department of Sociology at Brandeis University. Since 2016,he has served on the Editorial Board of the American Sociological Review and since 2018,he has been on the Executive Board of the Washington University Prison Education Project. [14]
Cunningham has served on several committees and has held several positions within the American Sociological Association. He is currently on the Committee on Professional Ethics (COPE);previously spent four years on the Council for the Section on Peace,War and Social Conflict;and was the Chair of the Gordon Hirabayashi Human Rights Book Award committee within the Section on Human Rights - among several other positions. [14]
He has especially had extensive involvement in the ASA's Section on Collective Behavior &Social Movements. Between 2007 and 2014,he has served on its Council,Workshop Committee,Mentoring Committee,Outstanding Article Award Committee,and Mayer Zald Outstanding Graduate Paper Award Committee. [3] [14]
Cunningham has won numerous awards for his research,writing,and teaching,which include:
His most recent book,Klansville,U.S.A.,has been the recipient of many accolades:
The Ku Klux Klan,commonly shortened to the KKK or the Klan is the name of several historical and current American white supremacist,far-right terrorist organizations and hate groups. Their primary targets are African Americans,Hispanics,Jews,Latinos,Asian Americans,Native Americans,and Catholics,as well as immigrants,leftists,homosexuals,Muslims,atheists,and abortion providers.
White pride and white power are expressions primarily used by white separatist,white nationalist,fascist,neo-Nazi and white supremacist organizations in order to signal racist or racialist viewpoints. It is also a slogan used by the prominent post-Ku Klux Klan group Stormfront and a term used to make racist/racialist viewpoints more palatable to the general public who may associate historical abuses with the terms white nationalist,neo-Nazi,and white supremacist.
David Bibb Graves was an American Democratic politician and the 38th governor of Alabama 1927–1931 and 1935–1939,the first Alabama governor to serve two four-year terms. He successfully advanced progressive political programs while allying himself with the Ku Klux Klan,probably serving as head of the Montgomery chapter.
The National Association for the Advancement of White People (NAAWP) is a white supremacist organization established in 1979 by former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard David Duke,deriving its name from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. It is considered a racist hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
The Enforcement Act of 1871,also known as the Ku Klux Klan Act,Third Enforcement Act,Third Ku Klux Klan Act,Civil Rights Act of 1871,or Force Act of 1871,is an Act of the United States Congress which empowered the President to suspend the writ of habeas corpus to combat the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) and other terrorist organizations who had terrorized and murdered innocent African Americans,public officials,and White sympathizers in the previous Confederate States of America. The act was passed by the 42nd United States Congress and signed into law by United States President Ulysses S. Grant on April 20,1871. The act was the last of three Enforcement Acts passed by the United States Congress from 1870 to 1871 during the Reconstruction Era to combat attacks upon the suffrage rights of African Americans. The statute has been subject to only minor changes since then,but has been the subject of voluminous interpretation by courts.
Thomas Robb is an American white supremacist,Ku Klux Klan leader and Christian Identity pastor. He is the National Director of the Knights Party,also known as the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan,taking control of the organization in 1989.
Mayer Nathan Zald was an American sociologist. He was a professor of sociology,social work and business administration at the University of Michigan,noted for contributions to the sociology of organizations and social movements.
The national leader of the Ku Klux Klan is called either a Grand Wizard or an Imperial Wizard,depending on which KKK organization is being described.
Charles Abram Ellwood was one of the leading American sociologists of the interwar period,studying intolerance,communication and revolutions and using many multidisciplinary methods. He argued that sociology should play a role in directing cultural evolution through education of society.
Kathleen Marie Blee is an American sociologist. She is a Distinguished Professor of Sociology at the University of Pittsburgh. Her areas of interest include gender,race and racism,social movements,and sociology of space and place. Special interests include how gender influences racist movements,including work on women in the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s.
The United Klans of America Inc. (UKA),based in Alabama,is a Ku Klux Klan organization active in the United States. Led by Robert Shelton,the UKA peaked in membership in the late 1960s and 1970s,and it was the most violent Klan organization of its time. Its headquarters was the Anglo-Saxon Club outside Tuscaloosa,Alabama.
Klansmen:Guardians of Liberty was a book published by the Pillar of Fire Church in 1926 by Bishop Alma Bridwell White and illustrated by Branford Clarke. She claims that the Founding Fathers of the United States were members of the Ku Klux Klan,and that Paul Revere made his legendary ride in Klan hood and robes. She said:"Jews are everywhere a separate and distinct people,living apart from the great Gentile masses ... they are not home builders or tillers of the soil." Her book,which contains many anti-Catholic themes,became popular during the United States presidential election of 1928 when Al Smith was the first Catholic presidential candidate from a major party.
The Ku Klux Klan has had a history in the U.S. state of New Jersey since the early part of the 1920s. The Klan was active in the areas of Trenton and Camden and it also had a presence in several of the state's northern counties in the 1920s. It had the most members in Monmouth County,and operated a resort in Wall Township.
Rory M. McVeigh is an American sociologist,Nancy Reeves Dreux Chair professor of sociology and director of the Center for the Study of Social Movements and former chair (2007-2016) of the department of sociology at the University of Notre Dame. From 2015 through 2020 he served as one of the lead editors of the American Sociological Review,the flagship journal of the American Sociological Association. He is widely cited in the field of social movements,particularly right-wing movements. He also edited the academic journal Mobilization from 2008 through 2015 and is the current the co-editor of the academic blog Mobilizing Ideas.
Ronald Breiger is an American sociologist and a Regents Professor,a professor of sociology and government and public policy,an affiliate of the interdisciplinary graduate program in statistics and data science,and an affiliate of the interdisciplinary graduate program in applied mathematics at the University of Arizona. Prior to coming to Arizona he served on the faculties of Harvard University and Cornell University. He is well cited in the fields of social networks,social stratification,mathematical sociology,organizational sociology and cultural sociology and,with Linton Freeman,edited the influential academic journal Social Networks from 1998 to 2006. In 2005 he was the recipient of the Georg Simmel Distinguished Career Award of the International Network for Social Network Analysis,. In 2018 he received the James S. Coleman Distinguished Career Achievement Award of the American Sociological Association (ASA) Section on Mathematical Sociology. In 2020 he was the recipient of the Paul F. Lazarsfeld Award of the ASA Section on Methodology,recognizing a scholar who has made a career of outstanding contributions to methodology in sociology.
Nancy K. MacLean is an American historian. She is the William H. Chafe Professor of History and Public Policy at Duke University. MacLean's research focuses on race,gender,labor history and social movements in 20th-century U.S. history,with particular attention to the U.S. South.
Ron Stallworth is an American retired police officer who infiltrated the ranks of the Ku Klux Klan in Colorado Springs,Colorado,in the late 1970s. He was the first African-American detective in the Colorado Springs Police Department.
Adia Harvey Wingfield is a professor of sociology at Washington University in St. Louis and the 2018 President of Sociologists for Women in Society. She is the author of several books,including No More Invisible Man:Race and Gender in Men's Work,and articles in peer-reviewed journals including Social Problems,Gender &Society,and Ethnic and Racial Studies. She has lectured internationally on her research.
James Robertson "Bob" Jones was an American white supremacist political activist who was active in the Ku Klux Klan in the 1950s and 1960s. He was Grand Dragon of the North Carolina Knights of the Ku Klux Klan from 1963 until 1969,when he was sent to prison for contempt of Congress.
Robert Alan Goldberg is an American historian. He teaches at the University of Utah and has written several books as well as articles and papers.