DR. HEATHER ANN THOMPSON  

Associate Professor of History
The University of North Carolina at Charlotte
Charlotte, North Carolina 28223
(704) 687-4643
email: hathomps@uncc.edu

 

PERSONAL:      

·     Date of birth: August 17, 1963

·     Birthplace: Lawrence, Kansas

 

EDUCATION:

·     Princeton University.  American History, Ph.D., 1995

·     The University of Michigan.  History, M.A. (With Distinction), 1987

·     The University of Michigan.  History, B.A. (Highest Honors), 1987

 

PUBLICATIONS:

 

Books:

·     Thompson, Attica: Race, Rebellion and the Rise of Law and Order America  (Pantheon Books, to press 2009)

·     Thompson, ed. Speaking Out With Many Voices: Documenting American Activism and Protest in the 1960s and1970s, (Prentice Hall, in press)

·     Thompson, Whose Detroit: Politics, Labor and Race in a Modern American City (Cornell University Press, 2001)

 

Chapters in books:    

·     “Blinded by a “Barbaric” South: Prison Horrors, Inmate Abuse and the Ironic History of Penal Reform in the Postwar United States” in Lassiter and Crespino, eds, The End of Southern History? (Oxford University Press, to press)

·     “All Across the Nation: Black Power Militancy in America’s Plants, Prisons, and Southern Piedmont, 1965-1975” in Kenneth Kusmer and Joe Trotter, eds, African American Urban History and Race Relations after World War Two (University of Chicago Press, to press)

·     Author, book chapter. "The Midwestern Freedom Struggle and the Remaking of the Urban America: Lessons from Postwar Detroit" in Rusty Monhollen, ed., The Black Freedom Struggle in the Midwest (Palgrave, to readers) 

·     “Mayor Coleman A. Young: Race and the Reshaping of Postwar Detroit,” in Roger Biles, ed. American Urban History, (Scholarly Resources Books, June 2002)  

·     “Rethinking the Collapse of Liberalism: The Rise of Mayor Coleman Young and the Politics of Race  in Postwar Detroit,” chapter in David R. Colburn, and Jeffery Adler, eds., African American Mayors, (The University of Illinois Press, April 2001)  

·    "Urban Uprisings: Riots or Rebellions,” chapter in David Farber and Beth Bailey, eds. The Columbia Guide to America in the 1960s.  (June 2001)  

·     "New Autoworkers, Dissent and The UAW: Detroit and Lordstown," chapter  in   Robert Asher and  Ronald  Edsforth, eds., Autowork, (New York: SUNY Press,  1995)

 

Articles in refereed journals:  

·     “Rethinking Political Transformation in Postwar America: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971, Liberalism, and the Rise of the Right.” (under consideration in the Journal of American History.)

·      "Making a Second Urban History." Essay collection commemorating the publication of Arnold Hirsch's, Making a Second Ghetto in the  Journal of Urban History (May, 2003)

·     ”Another War at Home: Reexamining Working Class Politics in the 1960s,” MidAmerica. (September 2000)

·     "Rethinking the Politics of White Flight in the Postwar City: Detroit, 1945-1980," The Journal of Urban History. (January, 1999)

 

Other Articles:

·     "'Share and Share Alike':  Examining the Labor-Management Cooperation in the1980s," Business Today, (Spring, 1989) 

 

Review essays:

·     “Telling it Like it Really Was: Women’s Movement Activism and Movement Making in Postwar America.” Review essay of Kimberly Springer, Living for the Revolution: Black Feminist Organizations, 1968-1980 and Christina Greene, Women and the Black Freedom Movement in Durham, North Carolina Warriors in Reviews in American History. (March, 2006)

·     "Rescuing the Right." Review of Lisa McGirr, Suburban Warriors in Reviews in American History (June 2002)

·     "Searching for Synthesis: Urban Rioting in Postwar America." Review Essay. The Journal of Urban History. (March 2000)

 

Book reviews:

Works in progress:

·     Article in progress for Labor: Studies in Working Class History called, ““Rethinking Prison Conditions and Prisoner Abuse in Modern America: Toward a Labor History of Inmates and Guards.”

·    Article in progress for Journal of African American History called, “Civil Rights, Black Power, and the Movement for Racial Justice Behind Bars: Redefining the African American Freedom Struggle in the Postwar United States

·    Series Editor: American Social Movements of the Twentieth Century. (Routledge). (Currently securing the authors who will write the first set of books to published in this series: The Black Power Movement, Asian-Pacific American Activism in Modern America, The Gay and Lesbian Civil Rights Movement, and The Poverty Rights Movement, and Chicano Activism in the United States after WW II)

 

AWARDS AND HONORS:

§   The Soros Justice Fellowship. The Open Society Institute. 2006-2007

§    The Franklin Research Grant, The American Philosophical Association. 2005

§    The Hackman Research Residency Grant, The New York State Archives. 2004

§    Littleton-Griswold Research Grant, American Historical Association. 2004

§    The Rockefeller Foundation, the Rockefeller Archive Center Research Grant. 2004

§    The National Endowment for the Humanities, Research Fellowship. 2000-2001

§    The University of North Carolina at Charlotte:

o       National Endowment for the Humanities, Focus Grant: “African American Identity.” 2004

o       Senior Faculty Research Grant, 2003-2004, 2006-2007

o       "Teaching American History" Grant U.S. Department of Education. Partnership between Charlotte Mecklenburg Schools and University of North Carolina at Charlotte, 2002-2005

o       CID Grant. Faculty Stipend Award for: The Digital Sound Archive Initiative, 2001

o       Junior Faculty Summer Research Grant, 2000

o       Junior Faculty Summer Research Grant, 1999

o       NEH Latin American Studies Initiative Course Development Grant, 1998-99

o       Junior Faculty Summer Research Grant, 1998

o       Faculty Research Support Grant, 1998

§    Princeton University:

o       The Rollins Prize, 1990, 1991

o       The Shelby Collum Davis Merit Prize, 1987, 1988, 1989

o       Princeton University Fellowship Award, 1987-1992

 

 

EMPLOYMENT:

§   The University of North Carolina at Charlotte

·    Associate Professor. Department of History.  August 2002-Present

Ø   Appointed to faculty in Public Policy Ph.D. program, 2004

§    The University of North Carolina at Charlotte

o       Assistant Professor. Department of History.  August 1997-August 2002

·     The University of Michigan

o    Visiting Assistant Professor. Joint Appointment, the Department of History and Residential College. Fall 1995- Summer 1997

·     The University of Michigan

o    Visiting Lecturer.  Department of History. Summer 1994- Summer 1995

  §    Wayne State University

o        Visiting Lecturer. Department of Geography and Urban Planning. Fall 1994

§    Wayne State University

o        Instructor. Department of Labor Studies. February- March, 1992, October-December 1991

§    The Union Institute/Ford Motor  Company.   

o        Instructor. April-June 1991

§    Wayne State University

o        Instructor. Labor Studies Union Awareness Program.  On site at: General Motors Hydromatic Plant, Ford Rouge Complex, General Motors Willow Run Plant, Locals 909, 600, December 1990-July 1992

§    Wayne State University

o        Instructor. Department of Labor Studies and UAW/GM Paid Education Leave Program.  On site at: General Motors Pontiac, General Motors Willow Run Hydromatic and Grand Rapids. May 1992 and May 1993

§    Princeton University

·         Assistant in Instruction. Department of History.  Spring 1989 

 

 INVITED TALKS:

 

·    Guest Speaker. The Long Civil Rights Movement: Histories, Politics, Memories, Methods. Sponsored by the Southern Oral History Project. University of North Carolina Chapel Hill. April 2-3, 2009.

·     Guest Speaker. “Attica and a Rethinking the Labor Movement Decline.” Center for the Study of Work, Labor, and Democracy. University of California, Santa Barbara. February 6, 2009.

·    Opening Plenary Participant. Cosponsored by the Center for Contemporary Black History at Columbia University: “Storm Warnings: Rethinking 1968, “The Year that Shook the World”. Fellow participants: Manning Marable, Peniel Joseph, Tom Sugrue, Michael Kazin, Jeremy Suri

·    Guest Speaker. "From Romanticizing and Remembering to Researching and Reassessing: Rethinking the Attica Uprising of 1971 and the Legacies of Black Power." 2nd Annual Conference, “New Perspectives in African American History and Culture.” UNC-Chapel Hill. April 12, 2008

·    Guest Speaker. "Spinning Rebellion: The Attica Prison Uprising, the Media, and the (Mis)Shaping of Working-Class Politics in Post-1970s United States." Youngstown State University Center for Working-Class Studies 13th Annual Lecture Series 2007-2008. February 26, 2008.

·     Guest Speaker. The “Malcolm Lester Lecture” at Davidson University. September 26, 2007

·    Guest Speaker. " The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and its Legacy: Rescuing Prisoner Rights and Rethinking the Nation’s Prison Crisis.” University of California, Berkeley. Boalt School of Law. September 13, 2007

·     Guest Speaker, “Why History Matters: the Attica Prison Uprising of 1971, Prisoner Rights, and Justice Policy Today.” The Open Society Institute, Soros Justice Fellows Annual Meeting. New Orleans. June 12, 2007

·     Guest Speaker, “The Perilous Path from the Past to the Present: Rethinking the Current State of Justice Policy in America.” Sanford Institute for Public Policy. Duke University. April 25, 2007.

·     Guest Speaker, “Attica: The Civil Rights Movement Behind Bars and its Legacy.” University of North Carolina at Greensboro. March 1, 2007

·     Guest Speaker, “The Attica Uprising of 1971: From Civil Rights Dreams to Prison Policy Nightmares. Wake Forest University. February 28, 2007.

·     Guest Speaker, “Attica: The Civil Rights Movement Behind Bars.” Rutgers University. October 26, 2006

·     Guest Speaker, "No Truth, No Justice: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and the Politics of the Ironic in Postwar America." Princeton University. Modern America Workshop. October 25, 2006

·     Guest Speaker, "The Attica Uprising of 1971: Rescuing the Past and Reclaiming the Future." The University of Pennsylvania Law School. October 16, 2006.

·     Guest Speaker, "Attica! Attica! Attica!: Rebellion, Reaction, and the Legacy of Truths Untold" The University of Michigan. September 21, 2006.

·     Guest Panelist. "Getting at Black Power History Sideways and Upside down: New Approaches to, and Understandings of, the Movement." Metropolitan History Workshop. The University of Michigan. September 22, 2006.

·     Guest Speaker. “Rethinking Prison Conditions and Prisoner Abuse in Modern America: Toward a Labor History of Inmates and Guards.” Annual Luncheon of the Labor and Working Class History Association. The Organization of American Historians Annual Meeting. Washington, D.C.  April, 2006.

·     Guest Speaker. “Blinded by the ‘Barbaric’ South: Prison Horrors, Inmate Abuse and the Ironic History of Penal Reform in the Postwar United States.” Conference: “The End of Southern History?  Integrating the Modern South and the Nation.” Emory University. March 23-24, 2006

·     Guest Speaker: “Rage, Activism and Power: African Americans and the Remaking of the Motor City, 1945-1975.” 10th Anniversary Celebration. Center for African American Urban Studies and the Economy (CAUSE). September, 2005

·     Guest Speaker. "What Happened to Detroit?" Spotlight on Research Television Lecture Series. March 6, 2003

·     Guest Speaker. “Detroit Politics in the Sixties and Seventies: Tumultuous Past, Contested Legacy" The Institute for Detroit Studies. February 13, 2003

·     Guest Speaker. "Firing Up the Motor City: Polarization and Possibility in Detroit's Auto Plants, 1965-1975. Eastern Michigan University Heritage Lecture Series 2003. February 12, 2003

·     Guest Speaker. "Southern Migrants and the Transformation of Shopfloors Politics in Detroit." The 1999 Commonwealth Fund Conference, "Two Souths: Towards an Agenda for Comparative Study of the American South and the Italian Mezzogiorno." London, England. January, 1999

·     Guest Speaker. "The Fight for Freedom on the Streets and Shopfloors of Postwar Detroit." The Smithsonian  Institution, Program in African American Culture Conference, "The African American Freedom  Struggle in the Midwest." Chicago, Illinois. October, 1998

·     Guest Speaker. "The Urban Impact of Restructuring in the Auto Industry: the Case of Detroit." The International  Seminar on Economic and Social Development in the Greater ABC Region. Sao Paulo, Brazil. May,  1997

 

PAPERS PRESENTED:

·      Roundtable Participant. ““Taking on the State: Collective Action and State Power in 20th Century Brazil, Chile, Venezuela, and the United States.” The Latin American Studies Association. Rio De Janeiro, Brazil. June, 2009.(under consideration)

·      Panelist. “Leading the Movement from Behind Bars: Rewriting the Struggle for Racial    Equality in the United States 1965-1975.” Panel title: “Student Protests”?  The U.S., West  Germany, and Poland in the 1960s-70s. American Historical Association Annual Meeting. New York City. January 2009.

·      Roundtable Participant. “On Trial Decades Later: The American Civil Rights Movement, Memory, and the Politics of Retrospective Justice.” Social Science History Association Annual Meeting. Chicago. November, 2007

·      Roundtable Participant. "Seeing the Forest Not Just the Trees: Towards a Synthetic History of Urban and Suburban Development in Postwar America." New Directions in Urban and Suburban History. Pacific Coast Branch. American Historical Association. August 5, 2006.

·      Panelist. “Attica: Rebellion, Murder, and Justice Deferred.” The Organization of American Historians Annual Meeting. Washington, D.C.  April, 2006

·      Roundtable Participant. “Writing Attica Anew and Again.” Race, Roots, & Resistance: Revisiting the Legacies of Black Power Conference. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. March 30-April 1, 2006.

·      Roundtable participant. “New Directions in the Study of Black Power: From Oakland to Attica.” Annual Meeting Association for the Study of African American Life and History. Buffalo, New York. October 5-9, 2005.

·      Roundtable participant. “Radical Labor Activism: From Past to Present.” The Southwest Labor Studies Association Meeting. Santa Barbara, California. May 5, 2005

·      Panelist. "Beyond 'Urban Crisis': Reexamining the political legacy of the Sixties in America's inner cities." Society for American City and Regional Planning History. St. Louis, Missouri. November 6, 2003

·      Roundtable Participant. "Global Politics and the American Labor Movement." The North American Labor History Conference. Detroit, Michigan. October 16, 2003.

·      Roundtable Participant. "Autoworkers in the 1950s," The North American Labor History Conference. October 17-19, 2002. Detroit, Michigan.

·      Panelist. “The Language of ‘Black Manhood’ and Worker Activism on Detroit’s Shopfloors: 1968-1971," The European Social Science History Association Meeting. Amsterdam, Netherlands. April 12-16, 2000

·      Panelist. “The Radical Roots of the Black Liberal Ascendancy.” The American Historical Association Annual Meeting. Chicago, Illinois. January, 2000

·      Panelist. “'A Ruling without Reason'; Black Militancy, Legal Liberalism, and White Disaffection with the  Motor City, 1969-1973."  Social Science History Association. Twenty-first Annual Meeting. New Orleans, Louisiana. October, 1996

·      Panelist. "Detroit Scholarship: Future Directions." Roundtable Discussion Participant.  The Eighteenth Annual North American Labor History Conference. Wayne State University. Detroit, Michigan. October, 1996

·      Panelist. "Rethinking the Politics of White Flight in the Postwar City: Detroit, 1945-1980." The Center for Recent United States History Conference--Contested Terrain: The Transformation of Postwar Political Culture, 1945-1955.  The University of Iowa. April 20, 1996

·      Panelist.  "Work Stoppages, Auto Worker Militancy and the State: the United States and Canada, 1950-1980."  The Seventeenth Annual North American Labor History Conference, Wayne State University. Detroit, Michigan, 1995 

·      Panelist. "The Disease of Racism: An African American's 'Insanity' and Institutionalization." The American Historical Association. Chicago, Illinois. January, 1995

·      Panelist. "Another War At Home: Autoworkers and Their Foremen on the Shop Floors of Detroit, 1963-1973." The State Historical Society of Wisconsin Conference, "Towards a History of the  1960s." Madison, Wisconsin. April, 1993

 

CONFERENCE COMMENT/CHAIR:

·   Comment on papers read at session entitled "Struggles for Economic Justice in the post-1960s American South" Organization of American Historians Annual Meeting. March 26-29, 2009.

·    Chair of session entitled: “Reinventing Urbanity in Post-WWII America.” Urban History Association Meeting. Houston, Texas. November 5-8, 2008.

·   Chair of session entitled: “Urban Renewal across the Regional Divide: American Values and Redevelopment Practices in Post-World War Two American Cities.” The Organization of American Historians Annual Meeting. Memphis, Tennessee. March 29-April 1, 2007

·     Comment on papers read at session entitled, “Culture and Civil Rights in the Sixties and Seventies.” The Organization of American Historians Annual Meeting. Memphis, Tennessee. April 3-6, 2003

·     Comment on papers read at session entitled, “Breaking the Mold: Gender, Class, Region, Race and Union Organization: White Collar Workers and Class Identity in the Twentieth Century.” The Twenty-Third Annual North American Labor History Conference. Wayne State University. Detroit, Michigan. October 2001.

·     Comment on papers read at session entitled, White Collar Workers and Class Identity in the Twentieth Century.” The Twenty-Second Annual North American Labor History Conference.  Wayne State University. Detroit, Michigan. October 2000.

·     Comment on papers read at session, entitled, “Made in Detroit: Local Histories, Local Politics.”  The American Studies Association. Detroit, Michigan. October 2000

·     Chair of session entitled, “New Perspectives on the New Deal.” The Graduate History Forum.  University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Charlotte, North Carolina. March 22, 2000.

·     Chair of session entitled, “Working Class Narratives from the Post-Industrial City.”  The Twenty-First Annual North American Labor History Conference. Wayne State University. Detroit,  Michigan. October, 1999

·     Comment on papers read at session entitled, “New Thoughts on the 1960s.” The Organization of American Historians Annual Meeting. Toronto, Ontario. April 22-24, 1999

·     Comment on papers read at session entitled, “Women’s Experiences in the Postwar Era: America  and Britain.” The Eleventh Annual Graduate History Forum. The University of North Carolina at Charlotte. April, 1999  

·     Comment on papers read at session entitled, “Labor and State Power in WW II-Era America.”  The Twenty-Third Annual Meeting of the Social Science History Association. Chicago, Illinois.  November, 1998

 

 

NATIONAL BOARDS/COMMITTEES:

 

§    Elected President. Southern Labor Studies Association, 2007.

§    Appointed to Board of Contributing Editors,  Labor: Studies in Working Class History of the Americas,  2006-2009

§    Appointed to Advisory Board, Wayne State University Press: "African American Life Series," 2004

§    Elected to Board of Directors, Urban History Association. January, 2003

§    Elected to Board of Directors, Labor and Working Class History Association. October, 2002