About Me

Dr. Daniel E. Walker—master storyteller, historian, filmmaker, and legendary classroom educator.

Dr. Walker is one of the world’s most prolific public historians. He is the author of No More, No More: Slavery and Cultural Resistance in Havana and New Orleans, founding director of the Gospel Music History Archive at the University of Southern California Libraries, and executive producer of How Sweet the Sound: Gospel in Los Angeles for KCET’s Emmy Award–winning series Artbound. His work received a Golden Mike Award from the Radio, Television, and News Association of Southern California and a Southern California Journalism Award from the Los Angeles Press Club.

His curatorial contributions include major exhibitions such as How Sweet the Sound at the California African American Museum; Sunshine & Central at the University of Southern California; and his contribution to It’s Been Said All Along: Voices of Rage, Hope and Empowerment at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame (curated by Nwaka Onwusa).

Dr. Walker is the founding director of the Long Beach Indie International Film and Entertainment Festival, presented in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Entertainment and Media Division. Graduates of his media internship program have advanced to the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts; the Syracuse University S. I. Newhouse School of Public Communications; the University of California, Los Angeles School of Theater, Film and Television; The University of Texas at Austin; and the American Film Institute Conservatory.

For three decades, he has served as the lead historian for the Footsteps to Freedom Underground Railroad Study Tour, an eight-day journey across five states and Canada that helps hundreds of K–12 educators each year put equity into action.

His professional experience includes serving as Project Manager at the New York City Economic Development Corporation; Executive Director of the Tijuana/San Diego affiliate of Habitat for Humanity; Economic Development Consultant to the Broward County Chamber of Commerce; and Project Lead for the creation of the Los Angeles School of Arts and Entertainment and New City Parish, an effort to reinvigorate Lutheran education in urban America.

Dr. Walker earned a B.A. in Psychology from San Diego State University, where he was elected president of the Student Government Association; an M.A. in Latin American History (with distinction) from the University of California, Riverside; and a Ph.D. in Latin American and African American History (with distinction) from the University of Houston. 

]In 2018, he received an Honorary Doctorate from Claremont Graduate University for his global contributions to arts, design, and innovation.