Books:
* The Politics of Black Civil Rights: The Truman Years (1971)
* A City in Revolt: India in 1946 (1969)
* Civil Rights and Political Change: The 1960s and Beyond (1991)
* Common Ground: A Reader on the History of African Americans (1989, co-edited with Robert P. Moses and Randy K. Bass)
* Dreams Deferred: The Struggle for Civil Rights in the United States (1987)
* The Long Road to Equality: A Memoir (2017)
Articles:
* "Militancy and Its Aftermath" (1971)
* "The Civil Rights Movement and the Black Working Class" (1972)
* "The Vietnam War and the African American Community" (1973)
* "African American Politics in the Post-Civil Rights Period" (1980)
* "The Future of African American Politics" (1991)
Awards and honors:
* National Book Award for Nonfiction (1972)
* Anisfield-Wolf Book Award (1972)
* Spingarn Medal (1992)
* NAACP Image Award (1992)
* American Historical Association's Distinguished Service Award (1994)
* National Humanities Medal (1997)
Daniels has also served as a professor at several universities, including the University of California, Berkeley, the University of Wisconsin–Madison, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.