Afrikan Conversations with Randall Kennedy

Randall Kennedy, J.D. is the Michael R. Klein Professor of Law at Harvard University and focuses his research on the intersection of racial conflict and legal institutions in American life. He supervises written work and accepts press inquiries regarding the topics of contracts, freedom of expression, race relations law, civil rights legislation, and the United States Supreme Court.

In 1997, Kennedy published Race, Crime, and the Law, which received a Robert F. Kennedy Book Award in 1998. In 2002 more controversy erupted when Kennedy published Nigger: The Strange Career of a Troublesome Word. In Interracial Intimacies: Sex, Marriage, Identity and Adoption, published in 2003, Kennedy attempts to bring greater understanding to the racial issues that continue to trouble American society. In his 2009 release, Sellout  revealed a rigorously fair case study of America's quintessential racial “sellout”—Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. 

Dr. Kennedy also explores interracial marriages throughout American history as well as their presence in literature and film. In his forthcoming book Persistence of the Color Line: Racial Politics and the Obama Presidency, Dr. Kennedy discusses the  issue of race and politics in the 21st century.