Bio
Brian Behnken specializes in African American and Mexican American history, with an emphasis on civil rights activism and comparative race relations. He has published widely within these fields and has also expanded his research focus to explore racial violence, law enforcement, popular culture, and nationalism as they relate to African American and Latino/a/x peoples.
In addition to his position in the Department of History, he also has affiliate faculty positions in the African and African American Studies Program and the U.S. Latino/a Studies Program.
Behnken teaches a broad array of course for the Department of History, African and African American Studies, and U.S. Latino/a Studies, including the United States History survey course, African American History Since Reconstruction, Mexican American History, United States History Since 1945, Civil Rights and Ethnic Power, the History of Racial Violence in Europe and the U.S. (with Dr. Jeremy Best), and other courses.
In his free time Behnken loves to go out to eat with his wife and spending time with his kids, he devotes countless hours to rehabbing a midcentury modern home (which he doesn’t always love!), he likes to ride his motorcycle (too fast), and he raises honey bees.
Ask An Historian
What is a favorite document that you’ve found in the archives?
I found a “wanted” letter sent from the Superintendent of Police in Boston to the Chief of Police in Dallas in 1909. John Harris was wanted for robbery and the abduction of 15-year-old Mildred Higgins. What surprised me was that Higgins was also wanted for being a “stubborn child.” I did some additional research into the crime of being a stubborn child and found that Massachusetts had passed a “Stubborn Children’s Law” in 1646 that penalized male children who were disobedient. The punishment was death! While this law was repealed in 1681, it seems it lived on in an informal way and was eventually extended to girls, hence the charge against Mildred Higgins.