Hugh Davis Graham was born September 2, 1936 and died on March 26, 2002 at his home in Santa Barbara, California at the age of 65. He was born in Little Rock, Arkansas, and spent his early years in Nashville, Tennessee.

He earned an undergraduate degree in history from Yale University in 1958, and then went on to complete his PhD in history from Stanford University in 1964. From 1967-1971, he worked as an associate professor and served as the director of the Institute of Southern History at Johns Hopkins University. Graham co-directed a task force for the National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence in 1968-1969, as well as co-edited the commission’s report, Violence in America. He then went on to teach at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County until he was hired at Vanderbilt University in 1991.

At Vanderbilt he served as the Holland N. McTyeire Professor of History, Dean of Social Sciences, and Dean of Graduate Studies and Research. He won several major awards for his teaching and service, authored two books, and edited another two. During his time as Dean of Graduate Studies, he won several fellowships and grants, including a Guggenheim, the National Institute of Education, the American Enterprise Institute, and the Social Science Research Council. He was well known for his academic contributions to civil rights, southern politics, and policy history.

Professor Graham died just after the publication of his final book and just before a conference on the Reagan presidency that he had helped organize.

His publications include:

Violence in America: Historical and Comparative Perspectives. Ed. with Ted Robert Gurr. Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office. 1969.

Huey Long (Great Lives Observed). Prentice Hall. 1970.

Southern Politics and the Second Reconstruction. With Numan V. Bartley. Johns Hopkins University Press. 1976.

The Uncertain Triumph: Federal Education Policy in the Kennedy and Johnson Years. University of North Carolina Press. 1984.

The Civil Rights Era: Origins and Development of National Policy, 1960-1972. Oxford University Press. 1990.

Collision Course: The Strange Convergence of Affirmative Action and Immigration Policy in America. Oxford University Press. 2003.

The Rise of American Research Universities: Elites and Challengers in the Postwar Era. With Nancy Diamond. Johns Hopkins University Press. 2004.