Blair LM Kelley, Ph.D. is an award-winning author, historian, and scholar of the African American experience, and the newly appointed president of the National Humanities Center (NHC), the only independent center for advanced study in the world dedicated exclusively to the humanities.

A nationally recognized public historian, Kelley’s work amplifies the histories of Black people, chronicling the everyday impact of their activism. Before joining the NHC, she served as the Joel R. Williamson Distinguished Professor of Southern Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and directed the Center for the Study of the American South. She is the first woman and the first person of color to lead the National Humanities Center in its 47-year history.

Kelley’s scholarship, published in books, academic journals, and edited volumes, focuses on African American social movements, segregation, and the Black working class. Her most recent book, Black Folk: The Roots of the Black Working Class (Liveright), weaves the stories of her own ancestors into a sweeping chronicle of Black labor from slavery to the present. Black Folk was named one of the Best Books of 2023 by Smithsonian and Amazon, and received the 2024 Brooklyn Library Book Award, the 2024 Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Book Award, and the 2024 Philip Taft Labor History Prize. It was also a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Award in History. The book was supported by a Creative Nonfiction Grant from the Whiting Foundation and a John Hope Franklin/National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship at the National Humanities Center.

A sought-after commentator and thought leader, Kelley has contributed to numerous television radio programs, and  podcasts including NPR’s Marketplace, Here & Now, and Fresh Air; MSNBC’s All In with Chris Hayes, The Sunday Show with Jonathan Capehart, Velshi, and Into America. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Root, The Grio, and The Daily Beast.

Kelley earned her B.A. from the University of Virginia in History and African and African American Studies, and her M.A. and Ph.D. in History from Duke University, where she also earned graduate certificates in African and African American Studies and Women’s Studies.