ESSAYS
“Michelle Obama’s Embrace,” Public Books. November 2018.
“‘I Had a Dream About You Last Night – A Sexual Dream’: Women Have Heard It All,” Chronicle of Higher Education. April 2018.
“The Blood is in the Details: When Scars of Slavery are Markers of Freedom.” Muster: The Blog of the Journal of the Civil War Era. December 1, 2017.
“Before Frederick Douglass: William Watkins Speaks for Black Americans on Independence Day. July4, 1831.” Medium. July 4, 2017.
“Are There New Lives for Old Objects at the National Museum of African American History and Culture?” Muster: The Blog of the Journal of the Civil War Era. October 11, 2016.
“Thurgood Marshall and His Hometown Courthouse.” We’re History. July 11, 2016.
“We Are the Intellectuals.” Roundtable: Toward an Intellectual History of Black Women.” African-American Intellectual History Society Blog. June 5, 2015.
“On The Cherokee Rose, Historical Fiction, and Silences in the Archives.” Process: The Blog of the Organization of American Historians. May 26, 2015.
“History, Myth and the Emancipation Proclamation.” Proclaiming Emancipation: The Exhibition Catalogue (Ann Arbor, MI: The William L. Clements Library, 2013.)
“A Bellwether: Phil Lapsansky at the Library Company of Philadelphia.” Phil Lapsansky: Appreciations (Philadelphia, PA: Library Company of Philadelphia, 2012): 84-88.
“Edward Clay’s Life in Philadelphia.” An Americana Sampler: Essays on Selections from the William L. Clements Library, eds. Brian Leigh Dunnigan and J. Kevin Graffagnino (Ann Arbor, MI: The William L. Clements Library, 2011).
“Reflections of an Archive Rat.” (Ann Arbor, MI: The William L. Clements Library, 2009.)
“Reframing the Color Line.” Reframing the Color Line: The Exhibition Catalog (Ann Arbor, MI: The William L. Clements Library, 2009.)
“Learning a Pedagogy of Love: Thomas Merton.” Living Legacies at Columbia, ed, Wm. Theodore de Bary (New York: Columbia University Press, 2006.)
“Mining Our Collective Memory: Beyond the Academic-Activist Divide in Black Studies,” Souls: A Critical Journal of Black Politics, Culture, and Society. 6, no. 3/4 (October 2004): 71-76.
COMMENTARY
“The Real Origins of Birthright Citizenship.” The Atlantic. October 2018.
“Trump Challenges Constitution With Talk of an Executive Order to End Birthright Citizenship: Today’s Talker.” USA Today. October 2018.
“Birthright Citizenship is a Powerful Weapon Against Racism. That’s Why We Must Protect It.” Washington Post. Jul 2018.
“The History Behind the Birthright Citizenship Battle,” New York Times, July 2018.
“How the 14th Amendment’s Promise of Birthright Citizenship Redefined America,” Time. July 2018.
“The Shaping of Citizenship.” WYPR’s On The Record. July 2018.
“Citizens: 150 Years of the 14th Amendment.” Public Books. July 2018.
“How to Resist Bad Supreme Court Rulings.” Washington Post. July 2018.
“A Definition of Citizenship: The Story of Two Writers Named William Yates.” Lapham’s Quarterly. July 2018.
“Trump said protesting NFL players ‘shouldn’t be in this country.’” We should take him seriously.” Washington Post. May 25, 2018.
“Michelle Obama and the Black Women of the White House.” Washington Post. February 18, 2018.
“Why Calling Elizabeth Warren ‘Pocahontas’ is a Slur Against All Mixed-Race Americans.” Washington Post. November 29, 2017.
“What Mark Lilla Gets Wrong About Students.” The Chronicle Review. August 2017.
“The 14th Amendment Solved One Citizenship Crisis, but it Created a New One.” Washington Post. July 2017.
“At the University of Michigan, Confronting Controversy to Move Forward.” Detroit Free Press. April 2017.
“The Future University Community is Now.” Michigan Daily. February 2017.
“Ava DuVernay’s 13th: It’s About Hope, Not History.” Medium. October 2016.
“Don’t Miss Out on What Michelle Obama Actually Said in 2008.” University of North Carolina Press Blog. July 2016.
“Clinton’s Historical Gaffe Has a History. Just Check Her Record.” History News Network. February 2016.
“Choice of Photo Does Disservice to Students’ Achievements, Reputations.” Boston Globe. December 2015.
“The Diversity Summit, Student Protest, and Asking the Hard Questions.” With Amanda Alexander, Matthew Countryman, and Austin McCoy. Michigan Daily. November 2015.
“Julian Bond’s Great-Grandmother a Slave Mistress?” How the New York Times Got it Wrong.” History News Network. August 2015.
“The Dreams Deferred in Baltimore’s Mortgage Crises Set the Stage for Unrest.” The Conversation. May 2015.
“Rallying Around Lynch Nomination: Black Women Flex Their Political Muscles.” Huffington Post. April 2015.
“Why We Still Need Black History Month, Even Though #28daysarenotenough.” CNN Living. Feburary 2015.
“Impolite Conversations: Skin-Color.” With John L. Jackson, Jr. Impolite Conversations: The Web Series. December 2014.