Gregory Mixon

Fall 2023 On Leave Spring 2024 Teaching

Kudos to Dr. Mixon!

Co-Director, “The Quest for Freedom,” NEH K-12 Educators Summer Workshop with the Thomasville History Center, Thomasville, Georgia, National Endowment for the Humanities Landmarks in American History and Culture, July 9-15 and July 23-29, 2023.

Show Thyself A Man: Georgia State Troops, Colored, 1865-1905 is my second book. It has just been published by the University Press of Florida (2016). Winner of the Georgia Historical Records Advisory Council (GHRAC) 2018 Award for Excellence in Research Using the Holdings of [an] Archives. The book marks an extended time researching questions focused on African American freedom during the late nineteenth century. The nineteenth century militia company was more than a military unit. It was critical to community organizing, public displays of freedom, and in some places a defense force. Georgia had two types of militia companies: independent and state sponsored. For more on this see: https://floridabookshelf.wordpress.com/2016/07/25/show-thyself-a-man/

Other Awards

2019 Fulbright Scholar: Research Chair in North American Studies, History York University, Toronto, Ontario, Canada January-June.

September 15, 2016:  The Second Annual J. Murrey Atkins Library Faculty Engagement Award for “collaborative work with library faculty and staff to produce creative opportunities for students to feel connected to History through the exploration of library materials.” The award is “presented to a UNC Charlotte faculty member who has engaged in innovative or exceptional work with library collections, programs, and services” as well as “recognition of outstanding faculty contributions to the library’s mission, vision, and strategic initiatives.” I must say thank you to Atkins Library faculty and staff because this award is the result of close cooperation with librarians in providing students with access to primary sources, the tools of the historian.

June-July 2011–National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Institute at the Du Bois Institute  at Harvard University, “African American Struggles for Freedom and Human Rights 1865-1965.” The NEH Summer Institute was a month-long intensive reading-discussion-research opportunity from June 27 to July 13, 2011. The Institute was sponsored by Dr. Skip Gates, Director of the DuBois Institute and Co-Directed by Dr. Patricia Sullivan-University of South Carolina and Dr. Waldo Martin-University of California.

Recent Publications

• Show Thyself A Man: Georgia State Troops, Colored, 1865-1905(Gainesville: University Press of Florida, August 2016)
• The Atlanta Riot:Race, Class, and Violence in a New South City (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, Spring 2005).
• “‘We deserve better treatment’: The Rise and Fall of the Militia in the Nineteenth Century Western Hemisphere,” (“Merecemos un tratamiento major”: Auge y caida de las milicias negras en el Hemisferio Occidental durante el siglo XIX), Boletin Americanista 44, 1, no. 68(2014): 55-77.
• “The Making of a Black Political Boss: Henry A. Rucker, 1897-1904,” Georgia Historical Quarterly 89(Winter 2005): 485-504.
• “The Political Career of Henry A. Rucker: A Survivor in a New South City,” Atlanta History: A Journal of Georgia and the South 45(Summer 2001): 4-26.
• “‘Good Negro-Bad Negro’: The Dynamics of Race and Class in Atlanta During The Era of the 1906 Riot,” Georgia Historical Quarterly 81(Fall 1997): 593-621.
• “Causes of the Atlanta Riot of 1906,” Black Resistance Movements in the United States and Africa, 1800-1993 edited by Felton Best,(Lewiston, New York: Edwin Mellen Press, 1995), pp. 107-129.

Research Interests

Black Southern State Militia Companies, 1865-1910, Racial Violence 1865-1930, Race Relations, Politics, Southern History, Black, Southern, and United States Urban History, Progressive era, Comparative History especially United States South and Latin American during the nineteenth century.

Courses Taught

• HIST 2160 and AFRS 2160 and Amst 2050 African American History Survey 1400-1860
• HIST 3213 History of the South Since 1860
• History 2530 Critical Thinking and Communication: Black Lives Mattered.

Biography

Ohio, Missouri, Nebraska, Virginia, New Jersey, Connecticut, North Carolina, Georgia

Education

BA. Washington University in St. Louis, 1974

MA. University of Cincinnati, 1977

Ph.D., University of Cincinnati, 1989.

Current Projects

I am currently working on a new book project: “Carolina’s Militiamen, 1865-1898” focused upon Black militias in North Carolina and South Carolina.