Ray Mohl was one of the leading urban historians in the United States. Educated at Hamilton College, Yale, and NYU, where he earned his Ph.D. in History in 1967. His first book, a study of poverty and social welfare in early national New York established his reputation as pioneering urban social historian.

Mohl taught at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton and at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. His research on urban history in the South led to books and articles on civil rights, race relations and immigration in Miami, and Latino immigration in Alabama and other areas of the South. He did extensive research in other areas of urban American history, including the relationship between the African American and Jewish communities in Miami during the civil rights and peace movements.