Peniel E. Joseph

Peniel E. Joseph is a historian specializing in race, democracy, and the Black freedom struggle in the United States. Joseph founded the "Black Power Studies" subfield within American history and civil rights history, integrating interdisciplinary areas such as Africana studies, law and society, women's and ethnic studies, and political science. He holds the Barbara Jordan Chair in Ethics and Political Values and serves as founding director of the Center for the Study of Race and Democracy at the LBJ School of Public Affairs. Joseph is also a distinguished service leadership professor and professor of history at the University of Texas at Austin. Prior to joining the University of Texas, Joseph established the Center for the Study of Race and Democracy at Tufts University.

Joseph is the author and editor of eight books on African American history, including "The Third Reconstruction" and "The Sword and the Shield." His debut, "Waiting 'Til the Midnight Hour: A Narrative History of Black Power in America," contributed to the field's development. His biography, "Stokely: A Life," is recognized as a comprehensive account of Stokely Carmichael, who popularized the phrase Black Power. "The Sword and the Shield: The Revolutionary Lives of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr." has received recognition from TIME, Financial Times, TLS, and PEN America Awards. This book inspired the National Geographic series, "MLK/X."

Joseph's work has received honors including the Hamilton Book Award from the University of Texas at Austin for "The Sword and the Shield: The Revolutionary Lives of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr." He is a recipient of the Robert F. Kennedy Book Award for "The Third Reconstruction: America's Struggle for Racial Justice in the Twenty-First Century," and the Benjamin L. Hooks National Book Award from the Benjamin L. Hooks Institute for Social Change at the University of Memphis for "Stokely: A Life." Joseph has also received the Texas Writer Award from the Texas Book Festival for contributions to Texas literature.

Joseph is recognized internationally for scholarship on race and democracy. He has been named an Andrew Carnegie Fellow, working on a book and digital policy project on James Baldwin. His project, "The Fire This Time: James Baldwin's 1963 and America's Civil Rights Revolution," examines polarization in American society through the lens of history, civil rights, and race, drawing on Baldwin's legacy. Joseph is also a Fellow in the School of Social Science at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey.

Joseph is a frequent national commentator on race, civil rights, and democracy, with work featured in New York Times, Washington Post, Boston Globe, NPR, CNN, MSNBC, PBS NewsHour, and C-SPAN. His research, teaching, and writing focus on the intersection of race, democracy, and human rights at local, national, and global levels, contributing to ongoing discussions about racial justice in America.