Robin D. G. Kelley is Professor of History at the University of California, Los Angeles. His books include Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination; Africa Speaks, America Answers: Modern Jazz in Revolutionary Times; Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original; and Black, Brown and Beige: Surrealist Writings from Africa and the African Diaspora (coedited with Franklin Rosemont). His essays have appeared in a wide variety of publications, including Nation, New York Times, frieze, New York Review of Books, Hammer and Hope, and Boston Review, where he is contributing editor.