Craig Steven Wilder

Craig Steven Wilder is a historian of American institutions and ideas.

He is the author of Ebony & Ivy: Race, Slavery, and the Troubled History of America’s Universities (Bloomsbury, 2013), which Kirkus Reviews named one of the best nonfiction books of the year and which won multiple book awards. Since its publication, scores of colleges and universities have publicly acknowledged their historical ties to slavery and the slave trade, and institutions across the Atlantic have committed to researching and publishing their connections to the slave economy.

The HBO comedy “VEEP” closed its sixth season with Selina Myer’s (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) plans for her presidential library at Yale University derailing upon reports that the site had once been the campus slave quarters. The 2017 premiere of the ABC comedy “black-ish” included a theatrical salute to the enslaved people who built the nation, including its universities. Professor Wilder’s book inspired the Grammy-winning artist Esperanza Spalding’s song, “Ebony and Ivy,” “Emily’s D+Evolution” (2016). A fictional book titled Ebony & Ivy was featured in the film “Dear White People” (2014).

Professor Wilder is also the author of In the Company of Black Men: The African Influence on African American Culture in New York City (NYU Press, 2001/2004); and A Covenant with Color: Race and Social Power in Brooklyn (Columbia University Press, 2000/2001).

He recently published a short article on the violent expansion of “Higher Education” [unedited draft at MIT Open Access] in the post-Revolutionary United States, in Keisha N. Blain and Ibram X. Kendi, eds., Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019 (New York: One World, 2021). His other recent essays include, “‘Sons from the Southward & Some from the West Indies’: Colleges and Slavery in Revolutionary America” [unedited draft], in James Campbell and Leslie M. Harris, eds., Slavery and the University (University of Georgia Press, 2018); “War and Priests: Catholic Colleges and Slavery in the Age of Revolution” [unedited draft], in Sven Beckert and Seth Rockman, eds., Slavery’s Capitalism: A New History of American Economic Development (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016); and “Driven . . . from the School of the Prophets” [unedited draft], the inaugural essay in the digital journal New York History, examining the rise of anti-abolitionist and anti-black politics and policies at General Theological Seminary in antebellum New York City.

Craig Steven Wilder is a senior fellow at the Bard Prison Initiative, where he has served as a visiting professor, commencement speaker, and academic advisor. For two decades, BPI has given hundreds of men and women the opportunity to earn college degrees during their incarcerations in the New York State prison system.

He has advised and appeared in numerous historical documentaries, including Ken Burns’ “The US and the Holocaust” (2022) and “Muhammad Ali” (2021); “Driving While Black” (2020), a study of the history of African Americans and the automobile; Lynn Novick’s “College Behind Bars” (2019), a four-part series following students in the Bard Prison Initiative; “The Chinese Exclusion Act” (2017); “Jackie Robinson” (2016); “The Central Park Five,” which won the 2013 Peabody Award; Kelly Anderson’s award-winning study of gentrification, “My Brooklyn”; the History Channel’s “F.D.R.: A Presidency Revealed”; and Ric Burn’s prize-winning PBS series, “New York: A Documentary History.”

He has directed or advised exhibits at regional and national museums, including the Brooklyn Historical Society, the New-York Historical Society, the Chicago History Museum, the Brooklyn Navy Yard’s BLDG 92, the Brooklyn Children’s Museum, the Museum of the City of New York, and the Weeksville Heritage Center. He was an original scholarly advisor to the Museum of Sex in New York City.

Professor Wilder began his career as a community organizer in the South Bronx. He has taught at Columbia University, Dartmouth College, Williams College, and Long Island University, and has been a visiting professor at the New School University and University College London.

He has advised and appeared in numerous historical documentaries, including Ken Burns’ “Race Man” (2016), which explores the transformative career of Jackie Robinson; “The Central Park Five,” which received the 2013 Peabody Award; Kelly Anderson’s groundbreaking and acclaimed exploration of gentrification, “My Brooklyn”; the History Channel’s “F.D.R.: A Presidency Revealed”; and Ric Burn’s prize-winning PBS series, “New York: A Documentary History.”

Professor Wilder serves on the board of the Lapidus Center for the Historical Analysis of Transatlantic Slavery at the Schomburg Center, New York Public Library. He has directed or advised exhibits at regional and national museums, including the Brooklyn Historical Society, the New-York Historical Society, the Chicago History Museum, the Brooklyn Navy Yard’s BLDG 92, the Brooklyn Children’s Museum, the Museum of the City of New York, and the Weeksville Heritage Center. He was one of the original historians for the Museum of Sex in New York City.

Professor Wilder began his career as a community organizer in the South Bronx. He has taught at Dartmouth College, Williams College, and Long Island University, and has been a visiting professor at the New School University and University College London.