Humans of OSU- David Crawford Jones’ Story

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David Crawford Jones is a professor currently working here at the Ohio State University. He was originally born in Washington D.C., but claimed that he spent most of his childhood in Maryland and grew up there. He went back to Washington D.C. for college, and after graduating from George Washington University with an English Major, he got a job at the baseball hall of fame. Dr. Jones knew at the time that he had an interest in history, so he returned to his education by going for his masters in African American history at the University of Albany. From there, he began his Doctoral program in 2005. He needed a dissertation. So, he went to the Yale Archives, finding a case from Namibia about a group of men flogged for their political views, and eventually came to the idea of doing his dissertation on corporal punishment in Namibia. He also found that his main interest at the time was “to see what the other side of the Atlantic ocean [looked] like,” another great reason to go to Africa. After living in Namibia for a year in 2009, he eventually would finish his dissertation in 2014 and then finally obtain a job at the Ohio State University where he is now starting his third year as a professor.