He is author of City Son, a biography of Brooklyn activist and journalist Andrew W. Cooper. Dawkins wrote two books about the National Association of Black Journalists, of which he was a board member and historian. He was a journalist for 23 years at daily newspapers in New York, New Jersey, Indiana, and Virginia. His writing has appeared in The Guardian, The Virginian-Pilot, and Black Issues Book Review. Dawkins is a distinguished journalism alumnus of Columbia University and winner of Hampton U.’s E.L. Hamm Teaching Excellence and Provost’s Academic Excellence awards.