In 2004, Muhammad received his Ph.D. in American history from Rutgers University, specializing in 20th century and African-American history. In 2013, Muhammad was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from The New School.
Career
After graduation from college, he worked as a public accountant at the financial advisory firm Deloitte & Touche LLP for three years. Initially planning a career in business, influenced by Rodney King case and O J Simpson murder case, Muhammad decided to shift to history and academia.[4]
From 2003 to 2005, Muhammad worked as a postdoctoral Fellow at the Vera Institute of Justice, a nonprofit criminal justice reform agency in New York City.[5]
In 2005, he joined the faculty of Indiana University Bloomington as professor of American history, African American and African diaspora studies and American studies.[9]
On October 2, 2024 the Princeton University Board of Trustees approved the appointment of Muhammad as Professor of African American studies and public affairs. His appointment will begin on January 1, 2025.[12]
Author
Muhammad is the author of The Condemnation of Blackness: Race, Crime, and the Making of Modern Urban America, published by Harvard University Press. The Condemnation of Blackness won the American Studies Association John Hope Franklin Publication Prize, which is awarded annually to the best published book in American studies.[13]
As an academic, Muhammad is at the forefront of scholarship on the enduring link between race and crime in the United States that has shaped and limited opportunities for African Americans. His research interests include the racial politics of criminal law, policing, juvenile delinquency and punishment, as well as immigration and social reform.[1]
Muhammad is working on his second book, Disappearing Acts: The End of White Criminality in the Age of Jim Crow, which traces the historical roots of the changing demographics of crime and punishment so evident today.[14]
Muhammad, Khalil Gibran (1999). "Race, Crime, and Social Mobility: Black and Italian Undesirables in Modern America". In Ashyk, Dan; Gardaphe, Fred L.; Tamburri, Anthony Julian (eds.). Shades of Black and White: Conflict and Collaboration Between Two Communities. Staten Island, NY: American Italian Historical Association. ISBN978-0-93-467544-4. OCLC869009041. Selected essays from the 30th Annual Conference of the American Italian Historical Association, 13–15 November 1997, Cleveland, Ohio
Muhammad, Khalil Gibran (September 2006). "Review of The Other Side of Middletown: Exploring Muncie's African American Community". Indiana Magazine of History. 102 (3). Indiana University Department of History: 269–270. ISSN0019-6673. JSTOR27792734. OCLC5556667278.
Muhammad, Khalil Gibran (2010). The Condemnation of Blackness: Race, Crime, and the Making of Modern Urban America. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. ISBN978-0-67-405432-5. OCLC812553821.
Muhammad, Khalil Gibran (18 March 2011). "Where Did All the White Criminals Go?: Reconfiguring Race and Crime on the Road to Mass Incarceration". Souls. 13 (1): 72–90. doi:10.1080/10999949.2011.551478. ISSN1099-9949. S2CID144082064.