Imani Perry facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Imani Perry
Perry in 2022
Born	(1972-09-05) September 5, 1972 (age 52) Birmingham, Alabama, U.S.
Academic background
Education	Yale University (BA) Harvard University (JD, PhD) Georgetown University (LLM)
Academic work
Institutions	Rutgers University Princeton University Harvard University
Main interests	Race, law, African American culture, Citizenship, American Politics, Intellectual Traditions, Neoliberalism, Culture and Life, Feminist Thought, Religious Thought

Imani Perry was born on September 5, 1972. She is an American expert who studies many different subjects like race, law, books, and African American culture. She teaches at Harvard University and also writes for The Atlantic magazine.

In 2022, Perry won a big award, the National Book Award for Nonfiction, for her book South to America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation. In 2023, she was also named a MacArthur Fellow, which is a special award for very talented people.

About Imani Perry

Imani Perry was born in Birmingham, Alabama. When she was five years old, she moved with her family to Cambridge, Massachusetts. She grew up as a Catholic.

Her Journey in Education

Imani Perry loved learning from a young age. She earned her first degree, a Bachelor of Arts, from Yale University in 1994. She studied American culture and literature there.

After Yale, she went to Harvard University. She earned two more degrees from Harvard: a Ph.D. in American history and a law degree (J.D.). She was only 27 when she finished her law degree! She also got another law degree (LLM) from Georgetown University Law Center.

Perry says that growing up around many different cultures and places made her want to study race. She wanted to understand how different groups of people live and interact.

Before teaching at Princeton, Perry taught law at Rutgers School of Law for seven years. She was a very good teacher and won awards there. She also taught as a visiting professor at other universities like the University of Pennsylvania Law School and Columbia University.

In 2009, Perry started teaching at Princeton University. Later, she moved to Harvard University. She continues to write books and articles about important topics.

Her Amazing Books

Imani Perry has written many books and articles. Her work often explores how law, culture, and Black studies connect. She wrote a book about the famous writer Lorraine Hansberry. She also wrote notes and an introduction for a special edition of the Narrative of Sojourner Truth.

Her ideas are shaped by different ways of thinking about culture and law. She has written a lot about race and American hip hop music. For example, she wrote a chapter for a book about the famous hip hop album Illmatic by Nas.

Her 2022 book, South to America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation, became a New York Times bestseller. It also won the 2022 National Book Award for Nonfiction, which is a very important award for non-fiction books.

Full Publication List

Here are some of the books Imani Perry has written:

• 2004: Prophets of the Hood: Politics and Poetics in Hip Hop
• 2005: Narrative of Sojourner Truth (She wrote the notes and introduction)
• 2011: More Beautiful and More Terrible: The Embrace and Transcendence of Racial Inequality in the United States
• 2018: Looking for Lorraine: The Radiant and Radical Life of Lorraine Hansberry
  • This book won the 2019 PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography.
  • It was also named a New York Times Notable Book of 2018.
• 2018: May We Forever Stand: A History of the Black National Anthem
• 2018: Vexy Thing: On Gender and Liberation
• 2019: Breathe: A Letter to My Sons
• 2022: South to America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation

Awards and Honors

Imani Perry has received many awards for her important work.