Lawrence Goodwyn

Born on July 16, 1928, Goodwyn graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree in English from Texas A&M University.[5] He later served in the U.S. Army in the Korean War and eventually ascended to the rank of captain.[6] After his military service, he completed a Ph.D at the University of Texas.[7] During his youth and education in Texas, he observed the systematic nature of white supremacy—an observation that motivated him to fight against racism through his academic career and political activism.[8]

Before beginning his academic career, Goodwyn's career as an investigative journalist motivated him to get involved in political activism alongside African American, Latino, and white working class groups.[9] During his time serving as an editor of the Texas Observer, he organized voters to advocate for the election of Democrats in the early 1960s, including his assistance in founding the Democratic Coalition.[10] Meanwhile, his reporting for the Texas Observer chronicled the local political activism.[11]

In 1964, Goodwyn toured the southern U.S. to document Black community organizing in the harrowing struggle for civil rights. He began in the Mississippi Delta during the Mississippi Freedom Summer.[12] He continued documenting the movement in Montgomery, Alabama, and met James Bevel, a leader of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.[13] Then, he moved on to Saint Augustine, Florida, where ongoing civil rights organizing had gained national attention.[14] Through participant observation, Goodwyn witnessed the resilience of local Black activists despite white supremacist violence and presence in the local police force.[15] His work in Saint Augustine culminated in his publication of a 1965 article in Harper’s Magazine, titled “Anarchy in Saint Augustine,” which documented the local struggle for civil rights.[16]

Duke University hired Goodwyn as a professor in 1971.[17] There, he and his colleagues, William Chafe and Ray Gavins, created Duke’s oral history program.[18] According to the New York Times, the program “employed many black graduate students, in part because Dr. Goodwyn insisted that whites should not have sole possession of Southern history.”[19] Not only did Goodwyn teach his students anti-racism, but he heavily emphasized that he, as a white man, constituted “part of the problem of authority,” radically owning his own privilege.[20]

In 1976, he published his most well-known work, Democratic Promise: The Populist Moment in America—a book read widely at universities across the U.S.[21]

Goodwyn retired from Duke University in 2003.[22]

• 1967 - The South Central States: Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Texas (Time-Life library of America)
• 1976 - Democratic Promise: The Populist Moment in America
• 1978 - The Populist Moment: A Short History of the Agrarian Revolt in America (abridged version of Democratic Promise)
• 1991 - Breaking the Barrier: The Rise of Solidarity in Poland
• 1996 - Texas Oil, American Dreams: a Study of the Texas Independent Producers and Royalty Owners Association