Imani Perry

Imani Perry is the Hughes-Rogers Professor of African American Studies at Princeton University. She is a scholar of legal history, cultural studies and African American studies, and the author of 6 books, including Looking for Lorraine: The Radiant and Radical Life of Lorraine Hansberry, which received the Pen Bograd-Weld Award for Biography, The Phi Beta Kappa Christian Gauss Award for outstanding work in literary scholarship, the Lambda Literary Award for LGBTQ Nonfiction and was named a 2018 notable book by the New York Times. Her book May We Forever Stand: A History of the Black National Anthem, winner of the 2019 American Studies Association John Hope Franklin Book Award for the best book in American Studies, the Hurston Wright Award for Nonfiction, and finalist for an NAACP Image Award in Nonfiction. Her most recent book is: Breathe: A Letter to My Sons (Beacon Press, 2019) which was a finalist for the 2020 Chautauqua Prize and a finalist for the NAACP Image Award for Excellence in Nonfiction. Her forthcoming works are South to America: A Journey Below the Mason Dixon Line to Understand the Soul of a Nation, and Blackletters and the Law.

Photo Credit: Sameer Khan