Wallace Golding is a native of Atoka, Tennessee, and a graduate of the University of Alabama at Birmingham and the University of Illinois. His research is primarily interested in the history of racial activism in the United States from Reconstruction to the present. In particular, his research investigates how activist identities conform to or contest collective understandings of citizenship and belonging.

Wallace works with CLOUD, the Computational Laboratory for Online and Ubiquitous Data, housed in the Department of Communication. He also serves as a peer leader for CMN 111/112, Oral & Written Communication I/II.