I focus on understudied individuals and historical events, particularly the anti-war activism and global travels of people of color and women. My second book, Radicals on the Road: Internationalism, Orientalism, and Feminism during the Vietnam Era (Cornell 2013) examined the international travels of American anti-war activists and how these journeys shaped their political identity and goals. Mom Chung of the Fair-Haired Bastards,” A Digital Narrative, May 2009 () My biography of Chung explores how she performed multiple and at times contradictory gender, racial, and sexual identities. military personnel, entertainers, and politicians. Born in the late 19th century, she became a celebrity during World War II, adopting over 1000 U.S. Mom Chung of the Fair-Haired Bastards: A Life of a Wartime Celebrity (University of California Press, 2005) was a biography of Margaret Jessie Chung, the first American-born Chinese woman doctor. I am particularly interested in understanding how individuals form identities and navigate/protest social inequalities. " intelligent, illuminating analysis.My research and teaching focus on analyzing intersecting social hierarchies, such as those based on race, gender, sexuality, and citizenship. The Color of the Law is a model of careful and courageous scholarship and should be standard reading for students of law and justice in the United States."- Law and Politics Book Review "An important work that adds depth and context to our knowledge of the American South and America itself. An important addition to the literature on race relations in the post-World War II South."- American Historical Review "Well-written, well-researched, and extremely thought-provoking.
exemplary book."- Journal of American History "O'Brien has combed the resulting court records, ransacked archives across the country, and interviewed dozens of people to reconstruct what happened in that particular time and place. "An important addition to the history of the post-war South and the system of justice which became an integral part of the ensuing modern Civil Rights Movement."- American Studies has resulted in a complex, multilayered story."- Journal of Southern History But she goes far beyond that to provide fascinating insights into the social, economic, and community developments that were beginning to undermine the Jim Crow legal system. O'Brien provides a wealth of detail on the incident and the response to it, which itself is a powerful and important story.
"A deeply textured book about the so-called race riot provoked by a white mob's attempt to lynch a young black World War II veteran. As such, they reveal the history behind such contemporary conflicts as the Rodney King and O. O'Brien argues that the Columbia events are emblematic of a nationwide shift during the 1940s from mob violence against African Americans to increased confrontations between blacks and the police and courts. In the process, she illuminates the effects of World War II on race relations and the criminal justice system in the United States. Two days later, highway patrolmen killed two of the arrestees while they were awaiting release from jail.ĭrawing on oral interviews and a rich array of written sources, Gail Williams O'Brien tells the dramatic story of the Columbia "race riot," the national attention it drew, and its surprising legal aftermath. By day's end, more than one hundred African Americans had been jailed. The next morning, the Tennessee Highway Patrol invaded the district, wrecking establishments and beating men as they arrested them. That night, after Stephenson was safely out of town, four of Columbia's police officers were shot and wounded when they tried to enter the town's black business district. On February 25, 1946, African Americans in Columbia, Tennessee, averted the lynching of James Stephenson, a nineteen-year-old, black Navy veteran accused of attacking a white radio repairman at a local department store.
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