Dr. James David Conway

Education:

Ph.D., The University of Memphis, 2015

Field of Interest:

Twentieth Century United States History and African American History with an emphasis on the Civil Rights and Black Power Movements at the local level.

Courses Taught:

United States History Before 1877
United States History Since 1877
The Civil Rights Movement
Intro to African and African American Studies
African American History

Certifications:

The Association of College and University Educators’ Effective Teaching Practice Framework Certification

Representative Publications:

JOURNAL ENTRIES

Review of A New Kind of Youth: Historically Black High Schools and Southern Activism 1920 – 1975, by Jon N. Hale, The University of Tennessee Press, (2026): 251-252.

Review of Memphis Hoops: Race and Basketball in the Bluff City, 1968-1997, by Keith B. Wood, The West Tennessee Historical Society Papers, 2022.

Review of Let The People See: The Story of Emmett Till, by Elliott J. Gorn, The Journal of Southern History, vol 6, no. 2, (2020): 528-529.

“A Review of the Newly Renovated Civil Rights Museum.” The West Tennessee Historical Society Papers 68(2015): 148- 150.

BOOK CHAPTERS

“The Memphis NAACP and the 1969 Black Monday Protest,” in An Unseen Light: Black Struggles for Freedom in Memphis, Tennessee (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2018).

Conferences and Presentations

April 2026 - Organization of American Historians – Philadelphia, PA
Presenter | Panel: “Lessons Unlearned: Using Post-Desegregation Education Activism to Combat Anti-DEI Myth Making”- Paper: The Battle for Quality Education: The NAACP and Busing in Memphis, Tennessee

September 2025 - Association for the Study of African American Life and History – Atlanta, GA
Moderator | Panel: “Health Gaps and Roadblocks: How Racism, COVID-19, Historical Mental-Health Disparities, and New Policy Shifts Are Shaping Nursing, Public Health, and Teaching the Next Generation”

February 2025 - 23rd Annual Graduate Conference in African American History
Commentator | Panel: “Fashioning Resistance and Legacy: Black Identity, Education, and Politics”

February 2023 - 22nd Annual Graduate Conference in African American History
Lunch Keynote Speaker Topic: “The Transition From Student to Faculty”

September 2022 - Association for the Study of African American Life and History – Montgomery, AL
Moderator and Presenter| Panel: “Black Power in the Mid-South: Black Pride and Emotional Wellness in Memphis and Arkansas” - Paper: Man of the People: Reverend Ezekiel Bell and the Black Power Era in Memphis

February 2022 - 21st Annual Conference in African American History – University of Memphis – Memphis, TN
Commentator | Panel: “The Struggle Over Education”

February 2022 - RAD (Racism: Access Denied) Podcast
Panelist | Title: Episode 1 - Riding the Train of Unrest: The Divisive Tools Dividing our Country

November 2021 - Graduate Association of African American History Professional Development Roundtable
Panelist | Title: Doing History: The Historian’s Task

October 2019 - 20th Annual Conference in African American History – University of Memphis – Memphis, TN
Commentator | Panel: “Black Faith and Spirituality”

October 2018 - 19th Annual Conference in African American History – University of Memphis – Memphis, TN
Commentator | Panel: “African American Women and Intellectual Currents of Resistance”

October 2018 - Association for the Study of African American Life and History – Indianapolis, IN
Presenter | Panel: “Beyond King: Interrogating The Black Freedom Movement in Memphis” - Paper: After King: The Memphis NAACP’s Struggle for Social, Economic, and Political Power

February 2018 - Tarrant County College/Tarleton State University History Symposium - Forth Worth, TX
Presenter | Panel: “Inspiration and Hope Through Speech and Protest” - Paper: Before Kapernick: Black Protest During the 1968 Olympics

October 2017 - 18th Annual Conference in African American History – University of Memphis – Memphis, TN
Commentator | Panel: “Radical Black Thought”

October 2016 - Madame C.J. Walker/Frederick Douglass 4th Annual Symposium - Indianapolis, IN
Panelist | Panel: “Scholars’ Panel on Legacy of Frederick Douglass’s Words”

October 2016 - Association for the Study of African American Life and History – Richmond, VA
Presenter | Panel: “Explorations of Struggles in the History of the Black Liberation Movement” - Paper: A SCLC in a NAACP Town: The Founding of Memphis’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference

Honors / Awards

2026 – Best Part-Time Instructor Award, University of Memphis

2024 – Black Student Association’s Outstanding Faculty Award. Arkansas State University

2023 – Black Student Association’s Outstanding Faculty Award, Arkansas State University

2022 – Golden Educator Award, Sigma Gamma Rho, Inc., Jonesboro, Arkansas

2022 – Certificate of Recognition, Black Student Association, Arkansas State University

2021 – Advisor of the Year Award, Tarrant County College

Fall 2014 – Dr. Peggy Jemison Bodine Dissertation Award, University of Memphis

Current Service:

Awards Committee; Part-Time Instructor Committee

Current Project

I am currently working to revise my dissertation into a manuscript. The project is an analysis of the NAACP and Black community protest in Memphis during the critical but often overlooked period after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The organization assumed leadership of mass protests during the civil rights era. However, the Sanitation Workers strike led to many outside groups and leaders coming to Memphis. This pushed the NAACP into a limited and mostly supportive role in strike negotiations with the city. Many local NAACP members participated in the strike, but the organization itself did not serve as its leader. King’s death left a power vacuum in Memphis which allowed the local NAACP to reposition itself at the forefront of the Black freedom struggle by blending a more radical approach with its traditional emphasis on gradual legal rights. It blurred the lines between civil rights and Black Power. Through protests, marches, and boycotts, Black Memphians were able to achieve quick gains in a short time frame.