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Melissa Harris-Perry

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Melissa Harris-Perry

Melissa Victoria Harris-Perry (born October 2, 1973), formerly known as Melissa Victoria Harris-Lacewell, is an American writer, professor, television host, and political commentator with a focus on African-American politics. Harris-Perry hosted the Melissa Harris-Perry weekend news on MSNBC from 2012 to February 27, 2016.

Harris-Perry was born to a white mother and black father. She was born in Seattle and grew up in Chesterfield County, Virginia, one of the counties adjoining the independent city of Richmond, Virginia, where she attended Thomas Dale High School. Her father was the first dean of African-American Affairs at the University of Virginia. Harris-Perry's mother, Diana Gray, taught at a community college and was working on her doctorate when they met. She worked for non-profit organizations that provided services such as day-care centers, health care for people in rural communities, and access to reproductive care for poor women.

Harris-Perry graduated from Wake Forest University with a bachelor's degree in English and earned a PhD in political science from Duke University. She received an honorary doctorate from Meadville Lombard Theological School, and is studying toward a Master of Divinity in theology at Union Theological Seminary of Columbia University.

Harris-Perry joined the political science faculty of the University of Chicago in 1999 and taught there for seven years, until 2006, when she accepted a tenured appointment at Princeton University as an Associate Professor of Political Science and African-American Studies. Harris-Perry left Princeton in 2011 after being denied a full professorship for Tulane University, where she was Founding Director of the Anna Julia Cooper Project, a center for the study of race, gender, and politics in the South.

On July 1, 2014, Harris-Perry returned to Wake Forest as the Maya Angelou Presidential Chair Professor of Politics and International Affairs. The Anna Julia Cooper Project is now resident at Wake Forest.

She is a regular columnist for the magazine The Nation, the co-host of the magazine's podcast System Check with Dorian Warren, and the author of two books (one published under the name Melissa Victoria Harris-Lacewell).

On February 18, 2012, Harris-Perry began hosting an MSNBC weekend morning show titled Melissa Harris-Perry.

In early 2013, Harris-Perry was criticized by some political commentators for statements she made on her program related to collective parenting. On December 31, 2013, she apologized for a "photos of the year" segment on December 28, 2013, that included jokes about a family picture featuring former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney's family, including his adopted Black grandson.

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