Associate Professor
Education
Ph.D., University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
I teach and research broadly in twentieth-century United States history with a focus on social movements, policing, urban history, and African American history. I’m the author of Police Against the Movement: The Sabotage of the Civil Rights Struggle and the Activists Who Fought Back, a retelling of the civil rights movement through its overlooked work against police violence—and the police who attacked the movement with surveillance, infiltration, and retaliatory prosecutions. Princeton University Press will publish my book in October 2025.
I’m also the author of From Head Shops to Whole Foods: The Rise and Fall of Activist Entrepreneurs (Columbia University Press, 2017) and co-editor of the essay collection Baltimore Revisited: Stories of Inequality and Resistance in a U.S. City (Rutgers University Press, 2019). My research has been supported by awards from the Fulbright Scholar Program, the Silvers Foundation, and the NEH Public Scholars Program. I've written for The Atlantic, The Nation, Slate, Jacobin, and The Washington Post, and my work has been highlighted in The New York Times, CNN and Time.
Magazine/Trade Publication
davis, j. (2023). “We Knew the FBI Spied on the March on Washington. They Weren’t the Only Ones,”.
davis, j. (2023). “Birmingham’s Use of Police Dogs on Civil Rights Protesters Shocked Liberals Onlookers. But the Backstory Was All-American,”.
davis, j. (2023). “Funkadelic von Frankfurt: Salto von Tresen”.
Regular Column in Journal or Newspaper
davis, j. (2021). The Art of Black Letter-Writing: A Conversation with Daphne Muse. Black Perspectives.
Book Reviews
davis, j. (2020). How the Nation of Islam Pioneered Prison Protest. Black Perspectives.
davis, j. Organization of American Historians, (2024).
davis, j. Urban History Association, (2023).
davis, j. Modern American History Seminar, Johns Hopkins University, (2023).
davis, j. Black Studies Collaboratory, University of California, Berkeley, (2022).
davis, j. On These We Stand: Collecting, Documenting and Archiving Black Lives and Cultures, University of California, Berkeley, Department of African American Studies, Berkeley, California. (2022).
davis, j. University System of Maryland Women’s Forum Annual Conference, (2021).
davis, j. American Studies Association, "“White Nationalists in Blue: Police in the John Birch Society"," (2021).
davis, j. CityLit Festival, "“The State of Baltimore"," Enoch Pratt Free Library, Baltimore. (2021).
davis, j. "Activist Businesses in a Global Context," University of Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany (via Zoom). (2021).
davis, j. "Police Against the Movement: U.S. Law Enforcement and Racial Justice Activists from the 1960s to Today," University of Warsaw, Warsaw, Poland (via Zoom). (2021).
davis, j. "“Black Lives Matter and the Historical Relationship between Police and Activists"," University of Warsaw, Warsaw, Poland (via Zoom). (2020).
davis, j. "From Head Shops to Whole Foods and the History of Capitalism," Temple University History Department, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. (2020).
davis, j. Winter Institute, "Bookselling and Liberation: Black Bookstores in America from the ‘60s to the Present," American Booksellers Association, Baltimore. (2020).
davis, joshua , "Wildacres Residency" Sponsored by Wildacres Foundation, (2024).
davis, joshua , "Public Scholar Fellowship" Sponsored by National Endowment for the Humanities, Federal, $60000. (2022 - 2023).
davis, joshua , "Library Research Grant" Sponsored by Getty Museum and Library, $3000. (2023).
davis, joshua , "Silvers Grant" Sponsored by Robert B. Silvers Foundation, $2000. (2022).
davis, joshua , "Rubys Award, Literary Arts" Sponsored by Robert W. Deutsch Foundation, Local, (2020 - 2021).
USA Today: Research on Black-owned bookstores profiled and provided expert commentary for the story "Inside historic black bookstores' fight for survival against the COVID-19 pandemic" (2020).
Mic.com: Research profiled and provided expert commentary for the Mic.com story “The Political Resilience of the Black-Owned Bookstore” (2020).
"Police and the Movement: The Sabotage of the Civil Rights Struggle and the Activists Who Fought Back" (On-Going)
Book scheduled for publication with Princeton University Press in October 2025