Imani Perry Imagines a Better Future by Writing About the Past
- - Imani Perry Imagines a Better Future by Writing About the Past
Erin McMullenJanuary 27, 2026 at 8:02 AM
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Credit - Courtesy John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation
Imani Perry may be in the business of writing about the past, but the award-winning author and educator is often thinking about the future. Like the greats of Black literature who came before her, the author of South to America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation, Breathe: A Letter to My Sons, and seven more books hopes that her words will resonate over the course of generations.
“I definitely am aspiring for something that I’ve experienced in the work of Lorraine Hansberry, Toni Morrison, Gwendolyn Brooks, James Baldwin,” Perry says. “These writers who, even though they were very much connected to their particular time, said something that was based in ethics, decency, and humanity that can speak to us to this day.”
Through her written work, Perry, 53, uses a historical lens to reflect on contemporary Black American life. With degrees in law, literature, and American studies, her observations are informed by rigorous study and research, and often invite readers to change the way that they engage with and understand the world around them. Her latest book, Black in Blues: How a Color Tells the Story of My People, published in January 2025, uses the color blue—“a conduit,” she writes, “something felt and known, even more than seen”—to unravel a complex history that spans continents, oceans, and centuries.
“The book is a quilt,” she says. Stitched together by tales of her own lived experiences are stories that highlight the deeply interwoven history between Blackness and the color blue—from the blocks of indigo dye once traded for enslaved people to the use of bluestone in hoodoo practices to the origins of blues music. “What I hope,” Perry says, “is that there are readers whose imagination is ignited in such a way to follow the threads.”
Perry’s earlier works include a history of the Black National Anthem, “Lift Every Voice and Sing”; a cultural critique of patriarchy; and an in-depth analysis of the politics of hip hop. In 2022, she won the National Book Award for nonfiction for South to America, a genre-shifting work that examines the history and culture of the region where she, a native Alabaman, grew up. The following year, she received a MacArthur “genius” grant.
At the center of her writing, no matter the subject, ultimately lies a desire to foster community and conversation. “Even though I’m telling very particular stories, I’m trying to get at a core human goal,” she says. “I love making deep, meaningful connections with other human beings.”
She carries this sensibility into her work as a professor at Harvard University, where she teaches courses on women, gender, sexuality, African, and African American studies. “Education makes us expansive and empathetic,” Perry says—qualities that she believes are necessary for her students to embody, especially today. “It can give them the tools to actually imagine the next stage of society and the world.”
But as educators in the U.S. are forced to reckon with sweeping book bans and intense pressure from the Trump Administration to comply with a political agenda that opposes discourse surrounding diversity, equity, and inclusion, Perry knows that staying focused on the present is just as important as envisioning the years to come.
“We have to meet the moment,” she says. As a scholar of Black history who has built her life around both teaching and learning, she feels equipped to do so. Calling upon the “remarkable” traditions of the civil rights leaders who remained committed to education access even in the face of opposition, she adds, “We can still read the banned books, teach each other what needs to be taught, and maintain an imagination for a just society.”
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Source: “AOL Entertainment”
