Matthew Delmont

Matthew Delmont is a Professor of History at Arizona State University. He is a historian of civil rights and media, and is the author of three books: Making Roots: A Nation Captivated; Why Busing Failed: Race, Media, and the National Resistance to School Desegregation; and The Nicest Kids in Town: American Bandstand, Rock ‘n’ Roll, and the Struggle for Civil Rights in 1950s Philadelphia; as well as the digital history project “Black Quotidian: Everyday History in African-American Newspapers.” Delmont has also published articles and op-eds in the New York Times, The Atlantic, and other newspapers, magazines, and academic journals.

During the Guggenheim Fellowship period, he will work on a book tentatively titled To Live Half American: African Americans at Home and Abroad During World War II. This book is a narrative history that analyzes what the war meant for black Americans in local, national, and global contexts.

Delmont earned his B.A. from Harvard University in 2000 and his Ph.D. in American Studies from Brown University in 2008. He is originally from Minneapolis, Minnesota.