Dr. Mack's research interests focus on race, immigration, and the carceral state in twentieth-century United States. His research takes a transnational approach to the development of the carceral state in Haiti and the U.S. during the 1970 through the 1990s. Will has had articles published with “Black Perspectives” the blog for the African Americans Intellectual History Society, the Society for U.S. Intellectual Society, and “Next Chapter,” the digital forum for the University of Chicago’s Race and Capitalism Project. He has also won the Organization of American Historians’ 2022 John Higham Research Fellowship Award for graduate students writing doctoral dissertation in American History.
Books Under Contract:
Tentative title: Transnational Carceral Regimes and Punitive Anti-communism: Haitian Immigrants, Race, Empire, and Policing in New York City and Haiti, 1915-2000, by University of Virginia Press, August 2026.
Book Proposal Under Review:
Anthology: Tentative title; Dark Waters: Centering Black Experiences in US Immigration History, co-editor Dr. Llana Barber, Rudolph J. Vecoli Chair in Immigration History and the Director of the Immigration History Research Center at University of Minnesota. Proposal under review at University of North Carolina Press, August 2024.
BL_STU 1000 – Introduction to Black Studies
BL_STU 3977 – Black Studies Methodologies
BL_STU 4303/7303 – Black Studies in Race, Class, Gender, and U.S. Policy
BL_STU 4335/7335 – The Wire: Race, Urban Inequality, and the “Crisis” of the American City
“‘The War at Home:’ Winning the Hearts and Minds of the Black Community; Race and Policing in New York City, 1970 to 1973” by The Journal of Urban History, online September 7, 2024, in print Fall 2025. https://doi-org.proxy.mul.missouri.edu/10.1177/00961442241277184
“White Nativism, Haitian Immigrants, and Black Solidarity,” Black Perspectives Blog, African American Intellectual History Society (September 4, 2024), https://www.aaihs.org/white-nativism-haitian-immigrants-and-black-solidarity/
“Haiti and U.S. Policing,” Black Perspectives Blog, African American Intellectual History Society (September 2021), https://www.aaihs.ord/haiti-and-us-policing
“‘Traitors in Our Midst’: Race, Corrections, and the 1970 Tombs Uprising,” Gotham: Blog for Scholars of New York City History, Gotham Center for New York City History (Oct. 1, 2020), https://www.gothamcenter.org/blog/traitors-in-our-midst-race-corrections-and-the-1970-tombs-uprising
“A Time for Change: Power and Policing in New York City,” Black Perspectives Blog, African American Intellectual History Society (March 2020), https://www.aaihs.org/a-time-for-change-power-and-policing-in-new-york-city/
“On the Building of Long Island,” Next Chapter Digital Forum, Race & Capitalism Project (Feb. 2020), https://www.raceandcapitalism.com/next-chapter/on-the-building-of-long-island
“Race and Policing: The Contradiction of Liberal Multi-Culturalism,” U.S. Intellectual Historical Blog, Society for U.S. Intellectual History (Oct. 2019), https://s-usih.org/2019/10/race-and-policing-the-contradiction-of-liberal-multi-culturalism/
“Walter Rodney: A Brief Examination,” The Griots Republic (Spring 2018), http://www.griotsrepublic.com/global-black-history-walter-rodney-travel-bans-didnt-silence-movement/