Davarian L. Baldwin is the Paul E. Raether Distinguished Professor of American Studies at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut. His academic and political commitments have focused on global cities and particularly the diverse and marginalized communities that struggle to maintain sustainable lives in urban locales. Baldwin is the author of Chicago’s New Negroes: Modernity, the Great Migration, and Black Urban Life (UNC, 2007) and co-editor (with Minkah Makalani) of the essay collection, Escape From New York: The New Negro Renaissance beyond Harlem (University of Minnesota, 2013). He is currently working on two projects, Land of Darkness: Chicago and the Making of Race in Modern America (Oxford University Press) and UniverCities: How Higher Education is Transforming Urban America. The UniverCities project has allowed Baldwin to coordinate activist projects around the issues of racial justice, gentrification, affordable house, worker’s rights, and policing. He is a member of the Reparations in Higher Education working group and is a former trustee of the Davis-Putter Scholarship Fund, committed to supporting student activists. Baldwin also serves as a member of SSJ’s Executive Committee.