He is a scholar of U.S. history who specializes in African American and Civil Rights history. Dr. Tillery has served as the executive director of the NAACP, Detroit Branch. He is the winner of the 1993 Gustavus Myers Center Outstanding Book Award on the subject of intolerance in the United States, and has been invited as a commentator by the Southwestern Historical Association and the Fourth Annual Conference on Latino Issues. Tillery is currently doing research on the history of race and intergroup relations in Detroit from 1943 to 1968.