We are excited to welcome Dr. Justin Randolph to Texas State as our new Assistant Professor of Oral History this semester! Dr. Randolph specializes in nineteenth- and twentieth-century U.S. social and political history. 

I grew up in rural-rural Alabama, was the least athletic person to ever play baseball at my high school, and played the saxophone. You guessed it: I’m a nerd. But you know…a cool nerd. 😎

I’m coming to Texas State from my PhD program at Yale University. Whew. That was a strange experience. Did you know there are people whose grandparents AND parents got PhDs? I was the first person in my family to get an associate’s degree at community college, so I didn’t have much in common with most of my classmates. Luckily I met other first-generation/low-income (FGLI) students with whom I built community. We kept one another accountable and got through it together.

To get a PhD in history you must write the draft of a history book. We call this a dissertation. I wrote mine on the history of police and Black activists in a very rural part of Mississippi. I found this story by conducing oral history interviews with Black farmers—many of whom have owned land since the end of the Civil War. However, I also found that racist white sheriffs and police officers had threatened these families’ safety and security from the beginning. The book I’m now writing shows how states like Mississippi reformed their police forces to chase away the Ku Klux Klan but never fully thought about how the police adversely impacted Black communities.

At Texas State I teach the introductory class on twentieth-century American history (HIST 1320), an upper level course on American history from 1968 to now (HIST 4361), and a graduate seminar on oral history (HIST 5345D). In the next few years I hope to design new courses for Texas State history majors. First, I want to get undergraduates involved in oral history in and around campus. Then, I want to introduce students to the history of the police and criminal legal system—what historians call the “carceral state.”

Hobbies? When my health holds out I enjoy running. And when the global pandemic is over, I might once again enjoy recreational softball and tennis.

What am I reading? Fiction and non-fiction. Fiction: Carson McCullers, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter (1940). She wrote it before age twenty-three. (What have I done with my life?!) Such amazing character development plus clear thinking on disability, racism, and radicalism. Go read this classic: I beg you! And nonfiction: Tressie McMillan Cottom, Thick: And Other Essays (2019). I know Cottom’s writing on the university and the future of work. Now, though, I’m turning to this MacArthur fellow’s memoir-style analysis of American and academic culture.