Danielle L. McGuire is the author of At the Dark End of the Street: Black Women, Rape, and Resistance—A New History of the Civil Rights Movement from Rosa Parks to the Rise of Black Power (2010), which won the OAH Frederick Jackson Turner Award, the Lillian Smith Award, and the Southern Association of Women Historians' Julia Cherry Spruill Award, and received an honorable mention for the OAH Darlene Clark Hine Award. She is also a coeditor, with John Dittmer, of Freedom Rights: New Perspectives in the Civil Rights Movement (2011). Her new book, "Murder in the Motor City: The 1967 Detroit Riot and American Injustice," is forthcoming.
"History matters--and when done well, it has the power to change the world. Our job as historians is to make the dead past live again. We must read deeply and rethink old narratives; look at the past with new eyes; and practice telling good stories. The future of the profession depends on it." This lecture offers practical writing and storytelling advice for anyone interested in making history matter; in telling stories that influence public policy; and using history as a tool to inspire and even change the present.