Dr. Peniel E. Joseph

Peniel E. Joseph is the Barbara Jordan Chair in Ethics and Political Values; founding director of the Center for the Study of Race and Democracy; Associate Dean for Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (JEDI) at the LBJ School of Public Affairs; Public Policy & International Affairs Program (PPIA) Board Chair; and distinguished service professor and professor of history at the University of Texas at Austin. An internationally recognized scholar-activist and author and editor of seven award-winning books, most recently “The Third Reconstruction: America’s Struggle for Racial Justice in the Twenty-First Century,” winner of the 2023 Robert F. Kennedy Book Award. Additionally in 2022, he was named the grand prize winner of the 2022 Hamilton Book Award, the University of Texas at Austin’s highest research honor for his book, “The Sword and the Shield: The Revolutionary Lives of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr.” He is a frequent national commentator on issues of race, civil rights, and democracy. A fellow of the Society of American Historians and a contributing writer for CNN.com, he lives in Austin, Texas.  Peniel is the proud parent of Ayelet, who is in the third grade, and Vivi, who graduated in 2023.