Derrick White
Biography
Born and raised in Lexington, Kentucky, I earned my Ph.D. in history from The Ohio State University. I use the lens of black organizational life to examine modern Black history, sports history, and intellectual history. My most recent book, Blood, Sweat, and Tears chronicles the development of black college football in the twentieth century, and is among the first comprehensive histories of black college athletics. Using the biography of Alonzo “Jake” Gaither and the history of the football program at Florida A&M University (FAMU), he shows how black college football and its supporters created successful programs during segregation by relying on a network of athletic enthusiasts in the media, on campuses, and in the community. I have published articles in New Politics, The Journal of African American History, the C.L.R. James Journal, the Journal of African American Studies, and the Florida Historical Quarterly. I co-host “The Black Athlete Podcast” with Professor Louis Moore, Grand Valley State University, and I tweet from @blackstar1906.
Recent Books
Blood, Sweat, and Tears: Jake Gaither, Florida A&M, and the History of Black College Football, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2019.
The Challenge of Blackness: The Institute of the Black World and Political Activism in the 1970s. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2011 (paperback edition 2012).
Winning While Losing: Civil Rights, The Conservative Movement, and the Presidency from Nixon to Obama. Co-edited with Kenneth Osgood. Gainesville: University Press of Florida,
2014 (paperback edition 2018).
- Professor of History and African American and Africana Studies
- History
- African American and Africana Studies
- Commonwealth Institute for Black Studies
1707 Patterson Office Tower
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