Imani Perry is the Henry A. Morss, Jr. and Elisabeth W. Morss Professor of Studies of Women, Gender and Sexuality and of African and African American Studies at Harvard University and the Carol K. Pforzheimer Professor at Harvard Radcliffe Institute. Perry is the New York Times bestselling and National Book Award winning author of South to America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation. She is also the author of Looking for Lorraine: The Radiant and Radical Life of Lorraine Hansberry, winner of the 2019 PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography; Breathe: A Letter to My Sons; Vexy Thing: On Gender and Liberation; May We Forever Stand: A History of the Black National Anthem, and now Black in Blues: How a Color Tells the Story of My People. Perry, a native of Birmingham, Alabama, who grew up in Cambridge, Massachusetts and Chicago, is a 2023 MacArthur Fellow.
