Melissa V. Harris-Perry is the Maya Angelou Presidential Chair, Executive Director of the Pro Humanitate Institute, and founding director of the Anna Julia Cooper Center, at Wake Forest University. Her previous book, Barbershops, Bibles, and BET: Everyday Talk and Black Political Thought, won the 2005 W. E. B. Du Bois Book Award from the National Conference of Black Political Scientists and 2005 Best Book Award from the Race and Ethnic Politics Section of the American Political Science Association.