Book Talk | Kimberley S. Johnson | Dark Concrete: Black Power Urbanism and the American Metropolis

Join the Institute for Public Knowledge and the Race and Public Space Working Group on Monday, March 23 (5:30-7:00 PM) for an event with Kimberley S. Johnson. She will discuss her new book, Dark Concrete: Black Power Urbanism and the American Metropolis, with Christina Greer and Domingo Morel. 

Kimberley S. Johnson is Professor of Social and Cultural Analysis at New York University, with affiliate appointments in the Department of Politics and the Wagner Graduate School of Public Service. Johnson recently held the John G. Winant Visiting Professorship in American Government at the University of Oxford (2024-25). Johnson’s work examines American political development, the formation of the modern administrative state and bureaucratic governance; urban and suburban governance; race and ethnic politics; and the political production of (sub-)urban space. Johnson’s most recent book, Dark Concrete: The Black Power Metropolis and Urban Political Development (Cornell University Press, 2025), traces the emergence of Black Power urbanism through comparative case studies of Newark and East Orange, New Jersey, and Oakland and East Palo Alto, California. She is also the author of Reforming Jim Crow: Southern Politics and State in the Age before Brown (Oxford University Press, 2010) and Governing the American State: Congress and the New Federalism, 1877–1929 (Princeton University Press, 2007). Her articles and essays have appeared in venues including Urban History, Studies in American Political Development, Urban Affairs Review, Du Bois Review, The Washington Post’s Monkey Cage, among others. Johnson is deeply engaged in public scholarship and collaborative research. She is a spatial storyteller and political analyst whose work connects historical inquiry to contemporary debates about democracy and racial inequality. She is co-organizer of the Race and Public Space (RAPS) working group at IPK. Her collaborative research projects include the Black Suburban Governance Project (NYU-Washington University); and, a digital humanities project: “Negro Main Street: Black business directories and the making of black urban space.” Johnson helped launch and teach in the Mellon-funded Barnard Teaches: Real Place + Digital Access initiative, partnering with the New-York Historical Society, The Frick Collection, and the Tenement Museum. She has contributed her expertise to numerous media projects including narrating/contributing to the documentary Divisible, which explores the enduring impacts of redlining and racialized housing policy in Omaha, Nebraska. Johnson also serves on the Research Board of The Living New Deal. 

Christina Greer is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Fordham University, Lincoln Center (Manhattan) campus. Her research and teaching focus on American politics, Black ethnic politics, campaigns and elections, and public opinion. She is the author of Black Ethnics: Race, Immigration, and the Pursuit of the American Dream, How to Build a Democracy from Fannie Lou Hamer and Barbara Jordan to Stacey Abrams, and co-editor of Black Politics in Transition: Immigration, Suburbanization, and Gentrification. Greer writes a weekly column for The Amsterdam News, is a frequent political commentator on several media outlets, and is the co-host of FAQ-NYC. Her research interests also include mayors and public policy in urban centers. Her previous work has compared criminal activity and political responses in Boston and Baltimore. 

Domingo Morel is an Associate Professor at New York University’s Robert F. Wagner School of Public Service and holds a joint appointment in NYU’s Wilf Family Department of Politics. His research focuses on racial and ethnic politics, urban politics, education politics and public policy. He is the author of Takeover: Race, Education, and American Democracy (2018, Oxford University Press), which won the W.E.B. Du Bois Distinguished Book Award. He is also co-editor of Latino Mayors: Power and Political Change in the Postindustrial City (2018, Temple University Press). His book Developing Scholars: Race, Politics, and the Pursuit of Higher Education (2023, Oxford University Press) examines the history and politics of college access programs created for students of color in the 1960s. The book challenges conventional wisdom about the role of protest in creating and maintaining policy and introduces a perspective on affirmative action policy that has received less attention from scholars, legal analysts, and practitioners. In addition to his scholarship, Dr. Morel has years of applied experience in education, political affairs, and public policy. Prior to pursuing his Ph.D., he worked in higher education for special programs designed to provide college access and support services to students from traditionally underserved populations.