[5] Having begun his teaching career as a graduate assistant at Temple University, Long subsequently taught at West Virginia State College.
He also spent a decade and a half as a teacher at Morgan State College (now University).
He taught English and French at the Hampton Institute and was also director of its College Museum.
[1][7] Long began his literary career in 1985 with Black Americana, and later published books such as The Black Tradition in American Dance (1989), African Americans: A Portrait (1993), Grown Deep: Essays on the Harlem Renaissance (1998) and One More Time: Harlem Renaissance History and Historicism (2007).
He was co-author with Marcia Ann Gillespie and Rosa Johnson Butler of Maya Angelou: A Glorious Celebration (2008).