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Research Interests
Brian Purnell’s research centers on America since World War II, with specific focus on New York City and State, the civil rights and Black Power movements, modern liberalism and the development of the US "urban crisis," and twentieth century racial ideology in the US. He is especially interested in the ways that blacks in American cities fashioned social movements to attain, wield and hold onto political power, as well as the ways "culture of poverty" and "underclass" discourses shaped national level policies concerning black people and black politics in the US. He is currently writing a book on the history of civil rights and Black Power movements in Brooklyn, New York, which will cover the rise of black political power from World War II through the end of the 1960s in one of the largest urban centers in the United States. He other research interests include the establishment of African American history as a sub-filed of US history and exploring the ways that oral history methodology is used in both academic and public history research, and is planning future projects on African American historiography and the use of oral history and ethnography in research on urban black populations.
Brian Purnell's articles have appeared in Afro-Americans in New York Life and History, Souls, and the anthology Groundwork (NYU Press, 2005), edited by Jeanne Theoharis and Komozi Woodard. Professor Purnell teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in US history with specific attention to African American and urban history. He also has developed courses on oral history theory and practice and public history.
He lives in Harlem, New York City, with his wife Leana and their daughter, Isabella.
Bronx-African American History Project
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