Melissa Harris-Perry

Melissa Harris-Perry
Born	Melissa Victoria Harris October 2, 1973 (1973-10-02) Seattle, Washington, U.S.
Residence	New Orleans, Louisiana
Other names	Melissa Harris-Lacewell
Education	Wake Forest University (B.A.) Duke University (Ph.D.)
Occupation	professor, author
Spouse	Dennis Lacewell (1999–2005) James Perry (2010–present)
Children	one daughter
Website
melissaharrisperry.com

Melissa Victoria Harris-Perry (born October 2, 1973; formerly known as Melissa Harris-Lacewell) is an American author, television host and political commentator with a focus on African-American politics. Harris-Perry hosts the eponymously named Melissa Harris-Perry weekend news and opinion television show on MSNBC.

She is a professor of political science at Tulane University. Prior to that, she was an associate professor of politics and African-American studies at Princeton University from 2006 to 2010, and taught political science at the University of Chicago from 1999 to 2005.

Life and career

Melissa Victoria Harris was born in Seattle and grew up in the Virginia cities of Charlottesville and Chester, where she attended Thomas Dale High School. Part of a blended family, she is the youngest of five children. Her black father, William M. Harris Sr., was dean of Afro-American affairs at the University of Virginia, and her white mother, Diana Gray, who taught at a community college and worked for nonprofits that helped poor communities. Her mother was raised in a Mormon working class family in a racially homogeneous neighborhood and went to college at Brigham Young University. After a failed first marriage, her mother left the Mormon Church and was a single mother and sole breadwinner before she met her father. “I’ve never thought of myself as biracial,” Harris-Perry says. “I’m black.”

She received a bachelor of arts in English from Wake Forest University in 1994 and a Ph.D. in political science from Duke University in 1999. She also received an honoris causa doctorate from Meadville Lombard Theological School. Motivated to better understand the role of the Black church in political movements, she was a Master of Divinity student at Union Theological Seminary of New York City. Harris-Perry considers her Wake Forest mentor, Maya Angelou, to be her most important inspiration for becoming a professor. "As her student I watched as she influenced public discourse, taught students, and shared ideas in a way that seemed to truly matter for people’s lives."

Harris-Perry is the author of Barbershops, Bibles, and BET: Everyday Talk and Black Political Thought on the methods African Americans use to develop political ideas through ordinary conversations in places like barbershops, churches, and popular culture. The work won the 2005 W.E.B. DuBois Book Award from the National Conference of Black Political Scientists and the 2005 Best Book Award from the Race and Ethnic Politics Section of the American Political Science Association. Her interests include the study of African-American political thought, black religious ideas and practice, and social and clinical psychology. Harris-Perry is a member of Delta Sigma Theta sorority.

She was married to Dennis Lacewell from 1999 to 2005, with whom she has a daughter. She currently lives in New Orleans and is married to James Perry, who was a 2010 candidate for mayor in New Orleans.

Harris-Perry was hired by Cornel West to work at Princeton in 2006. Although she had attained tenure at Princeton, the Center for African American Studies there declined to promote her to full professor — a vote of no confidence that led her to leave for Tulane in 2010. Harris-Perry opposes criticism of President Obama, which contributed to a public battle in which Dr. West described Harris-Perry as a "liar", a "fake, and a fraud." Harris-Perry countered that "God knows leaving Princeton was the best thing to happen to me in a decade, so my only response is, 'Thank You.' "

Media

Her writings have been published in The Chicago Tribune, The Los Angeles Times, Crain's Chicago Business, and Newsday. She regularly provides commentary for NBC News and MSNBC and has contributed to other television and print sources. She guest hosts for The Rachel Maddow Show. Harris-Perry has a regular print column for The Nation, Sister Citizen.

MSNBC announced on January 5, 2012 that Harris-Perry will host her own weekend show, beginning February 18, 2012 at 10:00 am. The eponymous show will follow Up with Chris Hayes and lead into Weekends with Alex Witt. According to The New York Times, Perry's schedule of commuting from New Orleans to New York City for each broadcast will be similar, but less frequent, than fellow MSNBC personality Lawrence O'Donnell's weekly commute from Los Angeles to New York City for daily broadcasts of The Last Word.

Bibliography

• Harris-Lacewell, Melissa Victoria (2004). Barbershops, Bibles, and BET: Everyday Talk and Black Political Thought (First ed.). Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0-691-11405-7. 

• Harris-Perry, Melissa V. (2011). Sister Citizen: Shame, Stereotypes, and Black Women in America. Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0300165418. 

External links

• Melissa Harris-Perry official website
• Melissa Harris-Perry on Twitter
• Column archive at The Nation
• Appearances on C-SPAN
• Melissa Harris-Perry at the Internet Movie Database
• Works by or about Melissa Victoria Harris-Lacewell in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
• Melissa Harris-Lacewell at the Notable Names Database
• PBS interview (May 18, 2007)