Imani Perry is the Hughes-Rogers Professor of African American Studies at Princeton University. She is the author of seven books, most recently the New York Times bestselling South to America: A Journey Below the Mason Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation (Ecco, 2022.) Perry’s work is based in the study of history, literature, culture, and the arts, and driven by her origins as a daughter of Birmingham, Alabama and a child raised by organizers, activists and intellectuals in the 20th century freedom movement.