Peniel E. Joseph is the Barbara Jordan Chair in Ethics and Political Values at the Lyndon Baines Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin, where he serves as founding director of the Center for the Study of Race and Democracy. He is also distinguished service leadership professor and professor of history in UT Austin’s College of Liberal Arts. He is an internationally recognized scholar of race and democracy and the author and editor of eight books, most recently Freedom Season: How 1963 Transformed America’s Civil Rights Movement. Joseph is a 2025 Andrew Carnegie fellow and member at the School of Social Science at the Institute for Advanced Study, working on a book and digital policy project on James Baldwin.