Dr. Strain specializes in twentieth-century U.S. history with emphases in American studies and African-American history.  His research interests include civil rights and hate crime.

He is the author of Pure Fire: Self-Defense as Activism in the Civil Rights Era (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2005); and Burning Faith: Church Arson in the American South (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2008).  He has published work in several edited volumes and journals, including The Journal of African American History and Louisiana History.  In addition, he has presented papers at numerous regional, national, and international conferences, including one at Centre de Recherches sur l’Histoire des Etats-Unis (CRHEU) at the University of Paris.

In 2006 he was named Researcher of the Year at FAU.  In 2006 he also participated in the National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Institute, “African American Civil Rights Struggles in the Twentieth Century,” as a Visiting Fellow at the W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research at Harvard University.  He has been awarded several grants and fellowships, including two from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.