She is the author of Before Jim Crow: The Politics of Race in Postemancipation Virginia (2000) and a coauthor, with Glenda E. Gilmore and Bryant Simon, of Jumpin' Jim Crow: Southern Politics from Civil War to Civil Rights (2000). Her writing has also appeared in the Chicago Tribune and Huffington Post. The recipient of fellowships from the American Council of Learned Societies, the American Academy in Berlin, and the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, Dailey is currently finishing a book on race, sex, and the civil rights movement from emancipation to the present.