David Goldberg

David Goldberg

Research interest(s)/area of expertise

• Black social movements

• Black labor history

• Black urban history

• Black Detroit

• Black radicalism

• Civil rights and black power movements

• Black intellectual history, and race, labor and the law

Research

My research focuses on the intersection between Black working class urban activism and Black social movements. My first book, "Black Power at Work," is an edited volume that chronicles the grassroots organizations and protests  that led to the development of affirmative action plans in the construction trades unions and the construction industry. My second book, "Black Firefighters and the FDNY: The Struggle for Jobs, Justice and Equity in New York City," (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2017), explores the decades long struggle of Black firefighters to eliminate segregation, racism and structural barriers on the job and within New York's Black communities.

I am currently writing a political biography of legendary Detroit revolutionary, General Baker, who was a founding member of the Dodge Revolutionary Union Movement (DRUM), the League of Revolutionary Black Workers (LRBW), the Communist Labor Party (CLP) and the League of Revolutionaries for a New America (LRNA). I am also putting together an edited collection of Baker's writings, speeches, and interviews that is tentatively titled, General Baker Speaks.

Education

• B.A. in African American Studies and History, Eastern Michigan University, 1996.
• M.A. in African Diaporic History, Morgan State University, 1998.
• M.A. in African American Studies, University of Massachusetts-Amherst, 2003.
• Ph.D. in African American Studies, University of Massachusetts-Amherst, 2006.

Awards and grants

• 2006-2007, Chancellor's Postdoctoral Research Fellow, African American Research Program, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
• 2009-2010: President's Urban Research Enhancement Grant, Wayne State University
• 2010: Humanities Center, Summer Research Fellow, Wayne State University
• 2012-13: National Endowment for the Humanities/Mellon Foundation Scholar-in-Residency, Schomburg Center for Research in the Black Culture, New York, N.Y

News mentions

• Reddit debates 'most Michigan' movie. See the top picks
• Some Detroiters view ‘Robocop’ film, statue as raw bigotry
• Warriors in the Community: The Crockett Lumumba Scholars learning community
• 20th Century African American Activism in Detroit

Selected publications

Books

• David Goldberg and Trevor Griffey, "Black Power at Work: Community Control, Affirmative Action and the Construction Industry" (Ithaca: ILR/Cornell University Press, 2010)
• David Goldberg, "Black Firefighters and the FDNY: The Struggle for Jobs, Justice, and Equity in New York City" (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press), (forthcoming, December, 2017)

Chapters in books

• David Goldberg, “Community Control of Construction, Independent Unionism, and the 'Short Black Power Movement' in Detroit,” in Goldberg and Griffey, eds., Black Power at Work: Community Control, Affirmative Action and the Construction Industry. (Ithaca: ILR/Cornell University Press, 2010), 90-111
• David Goldberg, “From Landless to Landlords: The Cooptation of Detroit’s Tenants’ Rights   Movement, 1964-1969,” in Julia Rabig and Laura Warren Hill, eds., The Business of Black Power: Corporations, Public Policy, and Community Development (Rochester: University of Rochester Press, 2012), 157-183
• David Goldberg & Trevor Griffey, “Introduction: Constructing Black Power,” in Black Power at Work: Community Control, Affirmative Action and the Construction Industry. (Ithaca: ILR/Cornell University Press, 2010), 1-22
• David Goldberg & Trevor Griffey, “Conclusion: White Male Identity Politics, the Building Trades, and the Future of American Labor,” in Black Power at Work: Community Control, Affirmative Action and the Construction Industry. (Ithaca: ILR/Cornell University Press, 2010), 189-208 

Articles in non-referred journals

• David Goldberg, “Detroit’s Radical: General Gordon Baker,” Jacobin, (May 17, 2014)

Courses taught by David Goldberg

Winter Term 2025 (future)

• AFS2210 - Black Social and Political Thought

Fall Term 2024 (current)

• AFS2350 - Black Detroit

Winter Term 2024

• AFS2210 - Black Social and Political Thought

Fall Term 2023

• HIS3995 - Special Topics in History
• AFS3500 - Special Topics: Literacy, Race, and Urban Society

Winter Term 2023

• AFS2350 - Black Detroit
• US2350 - Black Detroit

Fall Term 2022

• HIS3160 - Black Urban History
• HIS3360 - Black Workers in American History
• AFS3160 - Black Urban History
• AFS3360 - Black Workers in American History

Winter Term 2022

• US2350 - Black Detroit
• AFS2350 - Black Detroit
• AFS3180 - Black Social Movements
• HIS3180 - Black Social Movements