Justin Williams

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Associate Professor of History
Department Co-Chair
Director of the African American Studies Program

Justin Williams
Contact Info:
Campus: McNichols Campus
Building: Briggs
Room: 322
Phone: 313-993-1099
Justin Williams
Areas of Expertise:
Politics of modern Africa and its diasporas

Degrees

  • Ph.D., History from Stony Brook University
  • M.A., History from Stony Brook University
  • B.A., History from Columbia College (Missouri)

Biography

Justin Williams is an associate professor of History and director of the African American Studies Program at University of É«×ۺϾþà Mercy. He specializes in the politics of modern Africa and its diasporas. In 2025, he was a featured commentator in the PBS documentary series Great Migrations: A People on the Move, hosted by Henry Louis Gates. He joined the University in fall 2023.

Publications

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    Books

    Pan-Africanism Ghana: African Socialism, Neoliberalism and Globalization (Carolina Academic Press, 2016)



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    Articles, chapters and entries

    "Whatever the quality is that white people enjoy in black people, I ain’t got it.”: Critical Reflections on Paul Mooney’s Afrocentrism,” Journal of African American Studies- March 2026

    “A Talented Tenth: Afrocentrism, Gentrification, and Racial Uplift in Newark, New Jersey,” The Black Scholar, Vol. 55 (1)- March 2025

    “Maroons” in South America: From European Contact to Independence (London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2025)

    “The Challenge of African Americans: Kofi Busia Through The Eyes of the Black Press (1966-1972),” Ghana Studies, Vol. 27- December 2024

    “Atlanta Compromise, 1895” with Bobby R. Holt, in 50 Events That Shaped African American History (Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO Greenwood, 2019)

    “The “Rawlings Revolution” and rediscovery of the African Diaspora in Ghana (1983-2015),” African Studies, Vol.74 (3)- December 2015

    “New Africa in the World Coming to Harlem: A Retrospective Comparison of Jerry Rawlings & Thomas Sankara,” Journal of Pan African Studies, Vol.7 (7)- December 2014

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    Other publications

    “Anti-intellectual discourse threatens higher education,” The É«×ۺϾþà News, November 27, 2023



    “What the media gets wrong about Newark, NJ,” The Huffington Post, August 11, 2017

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