Faculty and Staff Directory

About

Christopher E. Manning (Ph.D., Northwestern University, 2003; B.A., University of Alabama, Huntsville, 1995) is Associate Professor of History at Loyola University Chicago, where he teaches courses in African American history, oral history method and theory, and the Chicago civil rights movement. He is currently the Undergraduate Programs Director and a member of the Rostenkowski Archives Advisory Committee.  Manning previously taught at Northwestern University.

Manning’s research has examined African American politics in twentieth-century Chicago, exemplified by The Ties That Bind: William L. Dawson and the Limits of Black Electoral Leadership in the Twentieth Century (Northern Illinois University Press, 2009).  His article “God Didn't Curse Me When He Made Me Black” won the Henry E. Pratt Memorial Award given by the Journal of the Illinois Historical Society.  Manning is currently engaged in two book projects, one is tentatively titled N.O.L.A: An Oral History of the Hurricane Katrina Volunteers which examines the volunteer mobilization in the aftermath of Hurricate Katrina in 2005; the second is a memoir entitled Army Brat: A Memoir of Racial Identity and Life as a Military Child.  He was nominated for the National Society of Collegiate Scholars Faculty of the Year Award in 2006.

Manning has served as a panelist in a number of public forums and appeared in local radio and television media to comment on historical and contemporary topics. He was the executive director of the Cook County Circuit Court Oral History Project from 2004 to 2009. He is currently the director of NOLA Oral History Project.

Degrees

Ph.D. Northwestern University, 2003

Research Interests

• African-American Political and Civial Rights Activism
• Black Chicago
• Chicago Politics and Civil Rights Activism
• Ethnicity in Chicago

Publications

• “Congressman Arthur Mitchell” in MacMillan’s Encyclopedia of the Great Depression (MacMillan Reference USA, 2003)
  
  
• "African-Americans in Chicago" in the Newberry Library's Encyclopedia of Chicago. (University of Chicago Press, 2004)
  
  
• Black Legislators in the Encyclopedia of the Great Black Migration. (Greenwood Press, 2006)
  
  
• Black Mayors in the Encyclopedia of the Great Black Migration. (Greenwood Press, 2006)
  
  
• William L. Dawson in the Encyclopedia of the Great Black Migration (Greenwood Press, 2006)
  
  
• Oscar DePriest in the Encyclopedia of the Great Black Migration. (Greenwood Press, 2006)
  
  
• “Perspectives on the Great Migration and Black Chicago,” Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society, Volume 100, No. 4 Winter 2007-2008.  This review essay covers six Chicago history, including Passionately Human, No Less Divine by Wallace Best; Earl B. Dickerson: A Voice For Freedom and Equality by Robert Blakely; Black Writing From Chicago: In the World, Not of It? edited by Richard R. Guzman; The Chicago Renaissance and Women’s Activism by Anne Meis Knupfer; Waiting for Gautreaux: A Story of Segregation, Housing and the Black Ghetto by Alexander Polikoff; and Chicago Blues: Portraits and Stories by David Whiteis
  
  
• “God Didn’t Curse Me When He Made Me Black,” Journal of Illinois History, State Historical Society, Fall 2009
  
  
•  “The Legacy of Bronzeville,” Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society, Fall 2009.  This review essay cover six works in Chicago history, including Adam Green’s  Selling the Race: Culture, Community, and Black Chicago, 1940-1960; Clovis Semmes’s The Regal Theater and Black Culture; Davarian L. Baldwin’s Chicago’s New Negroes: Modernity, the Great Migration, and Black Urban Life; Paul Street’s Racial Oppression in the Global Metropolis; Timmuel D. Black, Jr.’s  Bridges of Memory Volume 2: Chicago’s Second Generation of Black Migration
  
  
• The Ties That Bind: William L. Dawson and the Limits of Black Electoral Leadership in the Twentieth Century (Northern Illinois University Press, 2009)

PANELS

• Panelist for the Winter 2002 Northwestern University Graduate School Beyond Books Series, "The Price of the Ticket: Professional Socialization Issues for the Minority Academic."
  
  
• Panelist on the Harold Washington mayoralty in the Chicago Historical Society’s series, “Power and Promise: Chicago’s Mayors,” April 5, 2005.
  
  
• Panelist on “Without Sanctuary: Racism Then and There, Here and Now,” at First United Methodist Church of Chicago, July 14, 2005. 
  
  
• Panelist on “Challenges Confronting Faculty of Color in Institutions of Higher Learning,” at Loyola University for the DFI Fellows Meeting, January 17, 2006.
  
  
• Panelist on “Succeeding at a College or University as a Minority Student” for Project Upward Bound at Loyola University, January 27, 2006.
  
  
• Panelist on “Chicagoans in Conflict” Chicago Humanities Festival, Chicago, Illinois, November 12, 2006.
  
  
• Panelist on “Preparation for the Job Market” at Loyola University for the Graduate School, March 29, 2007.
  
  
• Panelist for the Global Studies Forum “Who Owns the Black Vote,” at Benedictine University, Lisle, Illinois, February 21, 2008 

INTERVIEWS AND COMMENTARY

• Interview and commentary for “Paper Trail: 100 years of the Chicago Defender”which aired on Channel 11, WTTW11 Wednesday, June 22, 2005.
• Interview and commentary on the “Chicago Hydrant Riots of 1966” Eight Forty-Eight, WBEZ, National Public Radio, Chicago, Illinois, July 13, 2006.
• Interview and commentary on the Election of President Barack Obama, CLTV Chicago, January 24, 2009.
• Interviewed regarding William L. Dawson and the Limits of Black Electoral Power on the John Rothman Show, July 12, 2009.