HIST 175
Glenn M. McNair joined the Department of History in the fall of 2001, completing a transition from law-enforcement officer to academic. Prior to entering graduate school he had been employed as a police officer and special agent with the U.S. Treasury Department. These experiences in law enforcement have inspired and informed his research agenda, which focuses on relations between African Americans and the criminal justice system. His current research focuses on changes in black political culture and empowerment strategies since the Civil Rights Era.
In teaching African American history, McNair attempts to explore what it means to be black in America and to foster student appreciation of the centrality of the African American experience to American social, political, cultural and intellectual life.
Civil rights, slavery and Southern history, criminal justice history, African American political and intellectual culture, dynamics of American identity formation.
2001 — Doctor of Philosophy from Emory University
1996 — Master of Arts from Georgia College
1988 — Bachelor of Science from Savannah State University
Editor, Georgia Historical Quarterly
Criminal Injustice: Slaves and Free Blacks in Georgia's Criminal Justice System (University of Virginia Press, 2009).
"Pawns in a White Man's Political Game: The Political Seduction of Black America," in Charles McKinney and Dwain Pruitt, eds., Looking Back: Lessons and Legacies of the Civil Rights Movement (Forthcoming).
"Slave Women, Capital Crime and Criminal Justice in Georgia,"Georgia Historical Quarterly (Summer 2009)
"The Elijah Burritt Affair: David Walker's Appeal and Partisan Journalism in Antebellum Milledgeville" (Georgia Historical Quarterly).
Several book reviews in scholarly journals and numerous articles in local and national newspapers on the trials of slaves.