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Kidada Williams

Kidada Williams

Professor

313-577-2525

kidada.williams@wayne.edu

3069 Faculty/Administration Building (FAB)

Department

History

Kidada Williams

Kidada E. Williams (here's a bio for introductions) is a historian and professor who researches African Americans' experiences of racist violence. At Wayne State, she teaches African American history, U.S. history and historical research methods.

The earliest proponents of African American history intended their research to reach the broadest possible audience. Williams tries to bridge the gap between academic history and public knowledge through teaching, lectures, media appearances and contributions to platforms like podcasts and documentary films, aiming to educate a broader audience about the historical and ongoing impacts of racist violence.

Williams began this work as a graduate student researching the Underground Railroad in Washtenaw County, Michigan and co-creating a bus tour. She has given talks at a variety of public institutions. She has contributed to NEH Summer Seminars and Institutes and was on the Zinn Education Project's roster of People's Historians, both of which helped K-12 teachers broaden their understandings of U.S. history and develop new strategies for teaching challenging subject matter. She appeared on Skip Gates's PBS award-winning series Reconstruction: America after the Civil War, Nikole Hannah-Jones's "The 1619 Project" series on Hulu and rebroadcast on ABC, NPR's "Morning Edition" and "On Point," WDET's "Detroit Today," and "BackStory with the American History Guys." Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, DAME, Slate and Bridge Magazine. Williams' work contributed to her 2024 election to the Society of American Historians.

Williams is also one of the co-developers of #CharlestonSyllabus, a crowd-sourced project that helped people understand the historical context surrounding the 2015 racial massacre at Charleston's Emanuel AME Church.

Lately, she has been extending her commitment to African American history by sharing her expertise on survivors of anti-Black violence on podcasts, like Scene on Radio's The Land That Has Never Been Yet, Why Is This Happening? with Chris Hayes, MSNBC's Into America with Trymaine Lee and the Slate Academy history series on Reconstruction. She was the host and co-producer of Seizing Freedom, a podcast docudrama created by Kelly Hardcastle Jones, that covered the epic story of African Americans' fight for freedom during the Civil War and beyond.

Contact

Email is the best way to reach her: kidada.williams@wayne.edu (if you need to arrange book signings, please contact Bloomsbury or email me for direct contact). Williams' existing and emerging commitments don't enable her to fulfill last minute requests or work on demand so please try to plan ahead, include all relevant details and remember that Black History Month and Juneteenth are the same time every year. 😉 

Need a concise bio to introduce her?

There's no need to struggle about what to say when there's a press kit.

Want the expertise of other historians?

The historical profession, has plenty of experts, including ones on African American history or U.S. history, who can meet your needs. Check out:

History resources for K-12 teachers, parents and general folks

K-12 teachers and parents often ask Williams for accessible resources on the history she teaches. Here is a page with a not exhaustive list of links for teaching and learning African American and U.S. history. The page includes links to lesson plans, primary sources, shows, classes and workshops.

Research interest(s)/area of expertise

  • African American history

  • U.S. history

  • Survivors of violence

Research

Williams investigates African Americans' testimonies about their traumatic injuries from racist violence after slavery. She is the author of "I Saw Death Coming" (longlisted for the 2023 National Book Award in Nonfiction and 2024 winner of the Organization of American Historians' Civil War and Reconstruction Book Prize) and "They Left Great Marks on Me." She has published "Legacies of Violence" (in the National Museum of African American History and Culture's "Make Good the Promises"), "Writing Victims' Personhoods and People into the History of Lynching," "Never Get Over It,"  "Maintaining a Radical Vision of African Americans in the Age of Freedom," "The Wounds that Cried Out" and "Regarding the Aftermaths of Lynching." Her research has been supported twice by fellowships from the Ford Foundation.

Graduate research supervision

Williams would be interested in supervising graduate students who wish to work on any topic relating to her expertise. She is particularly interested in working with students whose theoretical and methodological approaches align with Black Studies approaches to History and with Critical Trauma Studies examinations of violence. She also welcomes proposals regarding any aspect of African Americans' life, history and culture.
She is best suited to supervise students who already have a clear historical research agenda—including a well-defined research question, an identified archive and some knowledge of the historiography for the specific subject. Students who are looking to develop a research agenda would benefit from familiarizing themselves with the best research practices outlined in Jules Benjamin's "A Student's Guide to History" and Wayne C. Booth et al, eds., "The Craft of Research." Here is a great primer on writing research statements.

Education

  • Ph.D., University of Michigan, 2005
  • M.A., Central Michigan University, 1998
  • B.S., Central Michigan University, 1996

Awards and grants

  • Career Development Chair, Wayne State University, 2014
  • Board of Governors Faculty Recognition Award, Wayne State University, 2013
  • President’s Award for Excellence in Teaching, Wayne State University, 2011
  • College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Award for Teaching, Wayne State University, 2011
  • Humanities Center Faculty Fellowship Competition, Wayne State University, 2011
  • Ford Foundation Diversity Postdoctoral Fellowship, 2008
  • Eisenberg Institute for Historical Studies, “Topographies of Violence” Residency Research Grant, The University of Michigan, Fall 2008
  • Ford Foundation Dissertation Fellowship for Minorities, 2002
  • Board of Governors Faculty Recognition Award, Wayne State University, 2024
  • Organization of American Historians' Civil War and Reconstruction Book Prize, 2024

News mentions

Selected publications

Books

Edited books

  • With Chad Williams and Keisha N. Blain, Charleston Syllabus: Readings on Race, Racism, and Racial Violence. University of Georgia Press, 2016
  • A portion of the royalties will go to the Lowcountry Ministries Fund to address issues of social justice and economic empowerment in underserved communities in the South Carolina Lowcountry

Articles and chapters

Select public scholarship and appearances

Citation index

Courses taught by Kidada Williams

Winter Term 2025 (future)

Fall Term 2024 (current)

Winter Term 2024

Fall Term 2023

Winter Term 2023

Fall Term 2022

Winter Term 2022

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