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Peter Ling

Professor of American Studies, Faculty of Arts

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Biography

My recent work has been essentially historical sociology, attempting to test the proposition that social capital was critical to the success of the civil rights movement. One aspect of this is to see whether donations are occasional and spontaneous or significantly connected to pre-existing networks of association. A second aspect is to look at the Citizenship Schools in South Carolina and Mississippi to establish whether the recruitment of teachers and pupils tapped or created networks of association. This should produce a monograph Backing Dr King by 2015. Meantime, I have been commissioned to write a biography of John F. Kennedy for Routledge's Historical Biographies series for publication in 2013.

Teaching Summary

American History

The Presidency.

The Civil Rights Movement

Research Summary

American history. Political education in the civil rights movement. North American environmental history. Social capital and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Social capital refers to the… read more

Recent Publications

  • 2012. The Media Made Malcolm History Today. 49-55
  • LING PETER, 2012. Backing Dr King:: The Financial Transformation of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in 1963 The Sixties. (In Press.)
  • LING PETER, 2012. SNCCs: Not One Committee but Many. In: MORGAN, IWAN and DAVIES, PHILIP, eds., From Sit-ins to SNCC:: The Student Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s University of Florida Press. (In Press.)
  • LING, P. J., 2009. Uneasy Alliance: The NAACP & Martin Luther King. In: VERNEY, K and SARTAIN, L., eds., Long is the Way and Hard: One Hundred Years of the NAACP 1st edition. Fayetteville. University of Arkansas Press. 59-74 (In Press.)

Current Research

American history. Political education in the civil rights movement. North American environmental history. Social capital and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Social capital refers to the ntetworks, norms and sanctions that enable a group to perform more effectively as a group than as individuals. While segregation and discrimination clearly limited the levels of capital held by the African American population, it allowed for the formation of certain forms of social capital that proved basic to the civil rights movement. My research looks at the networks that channeled donations to SCLC and those that enabled grassroots organizing via the Citizenship Schools, using South Carolina and Mississippi as case studies for the latter.. I am writing articles detailing the processes by which SCLC elicited funds in response to media spot-lit events and the role of celebrities in fund-raising.

I am writing a general biography of John F Kennedy

Past Research

Introduction of the automobile.

Future Research

Comparative study of Martin Luther King Jr. (Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, Frederick Douglass, Billy Graham, Cesar Chavez, Malcolm X, and Jesse Jackson, Lyndon Johnson, John F. and Robert F. Kennedy). Political Education in the Civil Rights Movement.

  • 2012. The Media Made Malcolm History Today. 49-55
  • LING PETER, 2012. Backing Dr King:: The Financial Transformation of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in 1963 The Sixties. (In Press.)
  • LING PETER, 2012. SNCCs: Not One Committee but Many. In: MORGAN, IWAN and DAVIES, PHILIP, eds., From Sit-ins to SNCC:: The Student Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s University of Florida Press. (In Press.)
  • LING, P. J., 2009. Uneasy Alliance: The NAACP & Martin Luther King. In: VERNEY, K and SARTAIN, L., eds., Long is the Way and Hard: One Hundred Years of the NAACP 1st edition. Fayetteville. University of Arkansas Press. 59-74 (In Press.)
  • LING, P.J., 2007. Tracing the Movement's Path: Review essay of Ray Arsenault's Freedom Riders Reviews in American History. 35(2), 289-296
  • LING, P.J., 2006. Social Capital, Resource Mobilization and Origins of the Civil Rights Movement Journal of Historical Sociology. VOL 19(NUMBER 2), 202-214
  • LING, P.J., 2005. Be a Man, My Son: Steve Estes, I am a Man! Race, Manhood, and the Civil Rights Movement Reviews in American History. VOL 33(NUMB 4), 601-606
  • LING, P.J., 2004. Political education in post-Second World War Germany and the American South Comparative American Studies. VOL 2(NUMB 2), 223-240
  • LING, P.J., 2004. Thomas Jefferson and the Environment History Today. VOL 54(PART 1), 48-53
  • LING, P.J., 2003. The Democratic Party : a photographic history San Diego: Thunder Bay Press.
  • LING, P.J., 2002. Martin Luther King, Jr. London: Routledge.
  • LING, P.J., 2002. A White Woman's Word: The Scotsboro Case. In: GORDON-REED, A., ed., Race on Trial: law and justice in American history Oxford: Oxford University Press. 118-138
  • LING, P.J., 2002. Tales of White Birmingham: The Letter and the Bomb Reviews in American History. 30(4), 655-662
  • LING, P.J., 2002. Martin Luther King Jr. In: GRIMM, R.T., ed., Notable American Philanthropists: Biographies of Giving and Volunteering Westport: Greenwood Press.
  • LING, P.J., 2000. Racism for Lunch: The Sit-Ins of 1960 History Today,(February 2000, 50,), 28-31
  • LING, P.J., ADAMS, K.D., VAUDAGNA, M. and LENZ, G.H., eds., 2000. Transatlantic Encounters: Public Uses and Misuses of History in Europe and the United States VU Press.
  • LING, P.J. and MONTEITH, S.J., eds., 1999. Gender in the Civil Rights Movement New York: Garland Publishing.
  • LING, P.J., 1999. Spirituals, Freedom Songs, and Lieux de Memoire: African-American Music and the Routes of Memory Prospects. 24,
  • LING, P.J., 1998. Review of Jennifer Hochschild, Facing up to the American Dream: Race, Class and the Soul of the Nation History. 83(272), 694-695
  • LING, P.J., 1998. Review of Erle Johnston, `Politics: Mississippi Style, 1911-1979' Gulf Coast Historical Review. 13(2), 110-113
  • LING, P.J., 1998. Martin Luther King's Half-forgotten Dream: History Today. VOL 48(MNTH APR), 17-22
  • LING, P.J., 1998. Review of David W. Southern, John LaFarge and the Limits of Interracialism, 1911-1963 History. 83(272), 686-687
  • LING, P., 1997. From family to nation: organizing the Mississippi movement Ethnic and Racial Studies. VOL 20(NUMBER 3), 628-634
  • LING, P.J., 1997. Review of L.A. DeCaro, <em>On the Side of My People: A Religious Life of Malcolm X</em> History. 82(268), 660-661
  • LING, P.J., 1997. The Incomparable Elkins Rethinking History. VOL 1(NUMBER 1), 67-74
  • LING, P., 1997. Promised Lands: Modern Plantation Politics in Chicago and Hilton Head Borderlines: Studies in American Culture. VOL 4(NUMBER 1), 50-58
  • LING, P. J., 1997. Developing Freedom Songs: Guy Carawan and the African-American Traditions of the South Carolina Sea Islands HISTORY WORKSHOP JOURNAL. ISSUE 44, 199-214
  • LING, P., 1995. Local Leadership in the Early Civil Rights Movement: The South Carolina Citizenship Education Program of the Highlander Folk School Journal of American Studies. VOL 29(NUMBER 3), 399-422

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