A Covenant with Color: Race and Social Power in Brooklyn Craig Steven Wilder

Craig Steven Wilder is a professor of American history at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He grew up in Bedford-Stuyvesant in Brooklyn, New York.

Craig Steven Wilder is a professor of American history at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He grew up in Bedford-Stuyvesant in Brooklyn, New York. He received his Ph.D. from Columbia University focusing on urban history, under the tutelage of Kenneth T. Jackson, as well as Barbara J. Fields, and Eric Foner. His doctoral disseration was titled Race and the History of Brooklyn, New York which followed the history of Brooklyn from the arrival of the Dutch to the present day, focusing on the experiences of African-Americans. He has appeared on the History Channel's F.D.R.: A Presidency Revealed and on Ric Burns' PBS series, New York: A Documentary Film. Wilder was an assistant professor and Chair of African-American Studies at Williams College from 1995 to 2002, when he joined the faculty at Dartmouth. He remained at Dartmouth from 2002 to 2008 when he joined the faculty at MIT.

Interviews - Craig Steven Wilder - PBS
On New York's Immigration:I think the most phenomenal aspect of New York City, and it's almost continuous in New York City's history, is the sort of revolutionary movement of the population. These wild demographic shifts that occur every 20 years, the huge influx of people from all around the world. No other city can claim that type of population swing. Right now Brooklyn claims the largest African-descended population in the world outside Lagos, Nigeria.
"Whitman starts out writing for these one penny rags, the NEW YORK AURORA and other such papers. He eventually finds himself as the editor of the pro-slavery, pro-democrat BROOKLYN DAILY EAGLE, from which he is fired for expressing a moderate anti-slavery thought, which is not really an anti-slavery thought, it was just about slavery's extension into the west. He was a pro-slavery person, pro-slavery editor, and pro-slavery idealogue for most of his career. But Whitman I think, really comes to represent a whole generation of people who didn't know who to blame for what was happening in their society."

My Brooklyn - Kelly Anderson - 2012 Craig Steven Wilder