UMass Boston

Public Opinion, African American Electoral Behavior, Voting Rights, U.S. Political Institutions.

PhD 2001 University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Political Science
MA 1996 University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Political Science
BA 1992 North Carolina Central University, Political Science (summa cum laude) 

• King-Meadows, Tyson D. 2011. When the Letter Betrays the Spirit: Voting Rights Enforcement and African American Participation from Lyndon Johnson to Barack Obama, Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.
• King-Meadows, Tyson D. and Thomas F. Schaller. 2006. Devolution and Black State Legislators: Challenges and Choices for the Twenty-first Century, Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
• . Karpowitz, Chris, Tyson King-Meadows, Quin Monson, and Jeremy Pope. 2020. “What Leads Racially Resentful Voters to Choose Black Candidates?”. Journal of Politics 83(1):103–121.
• King-Meadows, Tyson D. 2020. “Harbingers of Unrest in Baltimore: Racial and Spatial Cleavages in Satisfaction with Quality of Life Before the 2015 Uprising.” Politics, Groups, and Identities, 8(5):845-866.
• Carter, Niambi M. and Tyson D. King-Meadows. 2019. “Perceptual Knots and Black Identity Politics: Linked Fate, American Heritage, and Support for Trump Era Immigration Policy.” Societies 9(1):11.
• . King-Meadows, Tyson D. and Shakari Nichele Byerly. 2018. “Reigniting the Civic Dimensions of Black Politics: The Imperative of Foregrounding ‘Systems’ When Challenging Systemic Oppression.” Journal of the Center for Policy Analysis and Research 1(1):121-137.
• Stevens, Elka M. and Tyson D. King-Meadows. 2017. “Technicolor Racism or Caricature Assassination? Satirizing White Anxiety About the Obama Presidency.” Howard Journal of Communication 28(1):72-92.
• Wilson, David C. and Tyson King-Meadows. 2016. “Perceived Electoral Malfeasance and Resentment over the Election of Barack Obama.” Electoral Studies 44(December):35–45.
• Bediako, Shawn M. and Tyson King-Meadows. 2016. “Public Support for Sickle-Cell Disease Funding: Does Race Matter?” Race and Social Problems 8(2):186-195.
• King-Meadows, Tyson D. 2009. “Running on Race and Against Convention: Michael Steele, Kweisi Mfume, and Maryland’s 2006 Senate Contest.” National Political Science Review, Piscataway, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 12(1): 23-44.
• King-Meadows, Tyson and Thomas F. Schaller. 2000. “Racial Segregation and Gerrymandering: The effects of size and diffusion of minority populations on gerrymandering outcomes in 30 American States.” American Review of Politics, Conway, Arkansas: University of Central Arkansas Press, 21 (Winter): 397-426.
• King-Meadows, Tyson and David Lowery. 1996. “The Impact of the Tax Revolt Era State Fiscal Caps: A Research Update.” Public Budgeting and Finance, Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, 16: 102-112
• King-Meadows. Tyson D. 2021.“Divergent Perspectives on Black Interests: The Obama Administration’s Complex Engagement with Black Elected Officials and Advocacy Groups.” In After Obama: African American Politics in a Post-Obama Era, edited by Todd C. Shaw, Robert A. Brown, and Joseph A. McCormick, II, 72-103. New York: New York University Press.
• King-Meadows, Tyson D. 2009. “The ‘Steele Problem’ and the New Republican Battle for Black Votes: Legacy, Loyalty, and Lexicon in Maryland’s 2006 Senate Contest.” In Whose Black Politics: Case Studies in Post-Racial Black Leadership, edited by Andra Gillespie, 241-270. New York: Routledge.
• King-Meadows, Tyson D. and Thomas F. Schaller. 2001. “Blacks in State Legislatures: A Case Study of North Carolina and Maryland.” In Representation of Minorities in the United States: Implications for the Twenty-first Century, edited by Charles Menifield, 163-188. Lanham, MD: University Press of America.

Dr. Tyson King-Meadows is a Professor of Political Science at the University of Massachusetts Boston. Before joining UMass Boston, Dr. King-Meadows was a Professor of Political Science at the University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC) and a 2019-2020 American Council on Education (ACE) Fellow at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. His research interests include public opinion, African American electoral behavior, voting rights, and U.S. political institutions. Dr. King-Meadows has published a range of scholarly articles and monographs, including Devolution and Black State Legislators: Challenges and Choices in the Twenty-First Century (with Thomas F. Schaller) and When the Letter Betrays the Spirit: Voting Rights Enforcement and African American Participation from Lyndon Johnson to Barack Obama. His teaching and research endeavors have been supported by the American Political Science Association (APSA), the National Science Foundation, Johns Hopkins University, Harvard University, Princeton University, the U.S. State Department, the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, the U.S. Department of Education, and the Ford Foundation Fellowship Program. Dr. King-Meadows has also served as a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Ghana, a W.E.B. DuBois Fellow at Harvard University, and as a APSA Congressional Fellow with the U.S. House of Representatives’ Committee on the Judiciary. Over his eighteen year career at UMBC, Dr. King-Meadows held numerous positions, including Associate Provost for Strategic Initiatives; Associate Dean for Research and College Affairs for the College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences (CAHSS); chair of the Department of Africana Studies; a founding member of the Center for Africana Research; faculty affiliate of the Maryland Institute for Policy, Analysis, and Research; faculty affiliate of the Language, Literacy, and Culture Doctoral Program; a founding member and co-chair of the Provost’s Executive Committee on Underrepresented Minority Faculty; a member of the Strategic Planning Steering Committee; a founding member and cochair/chair of CAHSS Black Faculty Committee; chair of Honors College Advisory Board; and a member of Shriver Center Advisory Board. Dr. King-Meadows holds a PhD in Political Science from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, is a former chair of the APSA Committee on the Status of Blacks in the Profession, and is a former president of the National Conference of Black Political Scientists. Dr. King-Meadows is an active researcher and continues to engage in interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research collaborations.