Chad Williams
Departments/Programs
African and African American StudiesHistory
Summer School Program
The Heller School for Social Policy and Management
Degrees
Princeton University, Ph.D.Princeton University, M.A.
University of California, Los Angeles, B.A.
Expertise
African American and modern United States History. African American military history. World War I. African American intellectual history.Profile
Chad Williams is the Samuel J. and Augusta Spector Professor of History and African and African American Studies at Brandeis University. Chad earned a BA with honors in History and African American Studies from UCLA, and received both his MA and Ph.D. in History from Princeton University. He specializes in African American and modern United States History, African American military history, the World War I era and African American intellectual history. His first book, Torchbearers of Democracy: African American Soldiers in the World War I Era, was published in 2010 by the University of North Carolina Press. Widely praised as a landmark study, Torchbearers of Democracy won the 2011 Liberty Legacy Foundation Award from the Organization of American Historians, the 2011 Distinguished Book Award from the Society for Military History and designation as a 2011 CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title. He is co-editor of Charleston Syllabus: Readings on Race, Racism and Racial Violence (University of Georgia Press, 2016) and Major Problems in African American History, Second Edition (Cengage Learning, 2016). Chad has published articles and book reviews in numerous leading journals and collections. He has earned fellowships from the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University, the American Council of Learned Societies, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, the Ford Foundation and the Woodrow Wilson Foundation. He is currently completing a study of W. E. B. Du Bois and World War I.Courses Taught
| AAAS | 5a | Introduction to African and African American Studies |
| AAAS | 130b | Black Brandeis, Black History |
| AAAS | 155b | Hip Hop History and Culture |
| AAAS | 156a | #BlackLivesMatter |
| AAAS | 160b | If We Must Die: War and Military Service in African American History |
| AAAS | 168b | The Black Intellectual Tradition |
Awards and Honors
Fellow, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University (2017 - 2018)
Mandel Faculty Grant in the Humanities (2012)
American Council of Learned Societies Fellowship (2011)
Dean of the Faculty Notable Year Achievement Award, Hamilton College (2011)
Woodrow Wilson Foundation Career Enhancement Fellowship (2007 - 2008)
Ford Foundation Diversity Postdoctoral Fellowship (2006 - 2007)
Scholar-in-Residence Program, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture (2006 - 2007)
Scholarship
Williams, Chad. "W. E. B. Du Bois, World War I and the Question of Failure." Black Perspectives (2018): <https://www.aaihs.org/w-e-b-du-bois-world-war-i-and-the-question-of-failure/>.
Williams, Chad. "World War I in the Historical Imagination of W. E. B. Du Bois." Modern American History 1. 1 (2018): 3-22.
Chad Williams and Barbara Krauthamer, ed. Major Problems in African American History. Second Edition ed. Cengage Learning, 2016.
Chad Williams, Kidada E. Williams and Keisha N. Blain, ed. Charleston Syllabus: Readings on Race, Racism, and Racial Violence. University of Georgia Press, 2016.
Williams, Chad. "African Americans in the Meuse-Argonne Offensive." A Companion to the Meuse Argonne Campaign. Ed. Edward G. Lengel. Wiley-Blackwell, 2014
Williams, Chad. "Solomon Northup’s Odyssey: From American Playhouse to 12 Years a Slave." Humanities 2014.
Williams, Chad. "“A Mobilized African Diaspora: The First World War, Military Service, and Black Soldiers as New Negroes”." Escape from New York! The “Harlem Renaissance” Reconsidered. Ed. Davarian L. Baldwin and Minkah Makalani. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2013
Williams, Chad. Torchbearers of Democracy: African American Soldiers in the World War I Era. University of North Carolina Press, 2010.
Williams, Chad. "African Americans and the Military." Schomburg Studies on the Black Experience: The Black Condition. Ed. Howard Dodson and Colin Palmer. Michigan State University Press, 2009
Williams, Chad. "Vanguards of the New Negro: African American Veterans and Post-World War I Racial Militancy." Journal of African American History 92. No. 3 (2007): 347-370.
