Prof.Dr. A. (Adam) Fairclough

Function:
  • Professor of American History
Expertise:
  • American Civil Rights Movement
  • Black schools and universities
  • Reconstruction, 1865-1880
  • Race and politics in Louisiana
  • Interracial relations in the U.S.

Telephone number: +31 (0)71 527 2706
E-Mail: a.fairclough@hum.leidenuniv.nl
Faculty / Department: Faculteit der Geesteswetenschappen, Institute for History, Algemene Geschiedenis
Office Address: Johan Huizingagebouw
Doelensteeg 16
2311 VL Leiden
Room number 167
 
Spreekuur / Hours
Dinsdag 16.00 - 17.00 / Tuesday 4pm - 5pm
The Raymond and Beverly Sackler Professor of American History
Fields of Interest
Prof. Fairclough, who studied history at Oxford University, received his doctorate degree from the University of Keele in 1978 with a dissertation on “A study of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and the Rise and Decline of the Nonviolent Civil Rights Movement”. Subsequently he wrote several books and numerous articles on the black civil rights movement in the United States, his main area of expertise.

In 2005-2006 Prof. Fairclough will offer courses at Leiden University on the Civil Rights movement, the American Civil War and Reconstruction era, and the Vietnam War
Curriculum vitae
Professor Fairclough received several prestigious research fellowships: an American Studies Fellowship van de American Council of Learned Societies, a post-doctoral fellowship at the Center for the Study of Civil Rights, Carter G. Woodson Institute, University of Virginia, an Andrew Mellon Fellowship of the National Humanities Center, North Carolina, twice a Personal Research Award of the British Academy, a research leave grant of the Arts and Humanities Research Board, and a Fellowship at the Gilder-Lehrman Institute.

Before his appointment to the Sackler chair at Leiden University in 2005, Prof. Fairclough has taught at the New University of Ulster, the University of Liverpool, the University of Wales, Lampeter, the University of Leeds and the University of East Anglia.
Major publications
Among his book publications are: To Redeem the Soul of America: The Southern Christian Leadership Conference and Martin Luther King, Jr. (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1987; rev. ed., 2001), which was awarded the Outstanding Book Award of the Gustavus Myers Center for the Study of Human Rights; Martin Luther King (London: Cardinal, 1990) and Race and Democracy: The Civil Rights Struggle in Louisiana, 1915-1972 (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1995). For Race and Democracy he received the Lillian Smith Book Award (1995); the Louisiana Literary Award (1995), the L. Kemper Williams Prize (1995), and the Outstanding Book Award, Gustavus Myers Center for the Study of Human Rights (1996). More recently, he authored Teaching Equality: Black Schools in the Age of Jim Crow (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2001) and Better Day Coming: Blacks and Equality, 1890-2000 (New York: Viking, 2001; Penguin, 2002).