Nicholas S. Mays

About Nicholas S. Mays

My historical interest largely centers around the history of marginalized people and groups in the United States and abroad, urbanization and the effects of urban renewal policies, race, black freedom struggles, and gender, as well as hip-hop music & culture. I teach courses in U.S. History, Black Studies, Africana Studies, Urban History, Hip-Hop Music & Culture, and the Carceral State (Mass Incarceration, Social Surveillance, and Policing). My expertise and historical training allow me to use my knowledge to engage and help college students build and practice academic skills. It also serves as a vehicle to conduct mentorship. Ph.D. Dissertation: ‘WHAT WE GOT TO SAY:’ RAP AND HIP HOP’S SOCIAL MOVEMENT AGAINST THE CARCERAL STATE & CRIME POLITICS IN THE AGE OF RONALD REAGAN’S WAR ON DRUGS; the study explores the racialization of urban ghettos and criminalization of black life; it also examines the way in which rap, and hip-hop culture more broadly responded as a mass cultural protest to racial discrimination inherent within the modern criminal justice system. My current research examines the way in which rap journalism responded to systemic and systematic inequality in the post-civil rights era. Growing up, I listened to and followed hip-hop and other forms of young black cultural aesthetics. I followed up my own lived experience by studying and researching how emerging hip-hop culture in the 1980s and early 1990s served as a discourse and protest against discrimination. One of my goals is to use history to empower people of marginalized groups. Like other musical genres, hip-hop is often associated with fun, dance, and leisure. In my research, I get to demonstrate how culture serves as a vehicle resist socioeconomic and political oppression.

Experience

1. Assistant Professor of History

   Baldwin Wallace University

   Aug 2017 — Present

Education

• Cuyahoga Community College

  Associate of Arts - AA

  2007 — 2009

• Kent State University

  Master of Arts - MA, Thesis: Northern Redemption: MLK., United Pastors Association, and The Civil Rights in Cleveland

  2012 — 2014

• Baldwin Wallace University

  Bachelor of Arts, Concentration in African American and American History

  2011

• Kent State University

  Doctor of Philosophy - PhD, 19th and 20th Century African American History and American History, and Modern African History

  2014 — 2021