Blair LM Kelley, Ph.D. is a renowned author, historian, and scholar of the African American experience. She is the seventh president of the National Humanities Center, the only independent center for advanced study in the world dedicated exclusively to the humanities. Kelley previously held senior leadership roles at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill as the Joel R. Williamson Distinguished Professor of Southern Studies and Director of the Center for the Study of the American South and at North Carolina State University where she served as Associate Dean for Interdisciplinary Affairs and Partnerships and the Alumni Graduate Professor of History. 

Kelley’s best selling book, Black Folk: The Roots of the Black Working Class (Liveright, 2023), interweaves the stories of her own ancestors into a sweeping chronicle of Black labor from slavery to the present. Black Folk has received the 2024 Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Book Award, 2024 Brooklyn Public Library Book Award, and the 2024 Philip Taft Labor History Prize and was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Award in History. Her newest book, Black Freedom: A Visual History of Juneteenth and Emancipation Days, (out June 2, 2026) is the first fully illustrated history of Juneteenth and other Emancipation Day celebrations, told through photographs, art, and an engrossing narrative from an award-winning historian. 

A sought-after public intellectual, Kelley’s commentary has appeared on NPR’s Marketplace, Here & Now, and Fresh Air; and MSNBC’s All In with Chris Hayes. Her writing has been featured in The New York Times and The Washington Post and other national outlets. 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.