Biography

 

Claude Clegg's work focuses on African American history as well as the African diaspora of the Atlantic world, exploring the ways in which people of African descent have created and imagined communities and identities outside of Africa.  He is the author of several books, including An Original Man: The Life and Times of Elijah Muhammad, The Price of Liberty: African Americans and the Making of Liberia, and Troubled Ground: A Tale of Murder, Lynching, and Reckoning in the New South.  He recently completed a history of the presidency of Barack Obama, entitled The Black President: Hope and Fury in the Age of Obama.

Claude Clegg teaches courses in African American and U.S. history.  He holds the Lyle V. Jones Distinguished Professorship in the Department of African, African American, and Diaspora Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he also has an appointment in the History department.  He has previously worked at Indiana University at Bloomington and North Carolina A&T State University.