He earned his PhD from New York University and is the author of Rumor, Repression, and Racial Politics: How the Harassment of Black Elected Officials Shaped Post-Civil Rights America (University of Georgia Press, 2012); co-author, with Chris Myers Asch of Chocolate City: A History of Race and Democracy in the Nation's Capital (UNC, 2017); and a number of popular and scholarly articles on post-civil rights era African American and Washington, DC politics. Derek lives with his wife and two sons in the District.