Arsenault wrote about the 1961
Freedom Rides in a 2006 book, Freedom Riders: 1961 and the Struggle for Racial Justice. His work on this critical period in the
civil rights movement became the basis of a two-hour 2010 television documentary film, Freedom Riders.[3] He appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show in an episode dedicated to Freedom Riders.[4][5] He has been awarded the Frank L. and Harriet C. Owsley Award of the
Southern Historical Association and the 2006 PSP Award for Excellence Honorable Mention History & American Studies.[6]
He has taught at the
University of South Florida, St. Petersburg campus, since 1980 and is the John Hope Franklin Professor of Southern History and was founding co-director of the Florida Studies Program (with Gary Mormino).[1][2]
Personal life
He is married to Kathleen Hardee Arsenault, retired university library dean, and the couple have two daughters, Amelia and Anne.[6]
Publications
1984: The Wild Ass of the Ozarks: Jeff Davis and the Social Bases of Southern Politics. Philadelphia: Temple University Press (paperback: Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1988). (Awarded the 1985 Virginia Ledbetter Prize)
1984: "The End of the Long Hot Summer: The Air Conditioner and Southern Culture". Journal of Southern History. 50(4): 597–628.
doi:
10.2307/2208474
1988: St. Petersburg and the Florida Dream, 1888–1950. Norfolk: Donning. (2nd edition: Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1996; paperback edition, 1998). (Awarded the 1990 Charlton Tebeau Prize)
1991: (Editor) Crucible of Liberty: 200 Years of the Bill of Rights. New York: The Free Press, 1991.
2002: (Co-editor with
Roy Peter Clark) The Changing South of
Gene Patterson: Journalism and Civil Rights, 1960–1968. Gainesville: University Press of Florida.
2005: (Co-editor with
Jack E. Davis) Paradise Lost? The Environmental History of Florida. Gainesville: University Press of Florida.
2008: (Editor) The Third Space of Enunciation: Proceedings of the English Department Conference, 9–10 March 2006 (Gabes, Tunisia: High Institute of Languages, Gabes, 2008).