Layli Maparyan, PhD, is Professor and Chair of the Africana Studies Department at Wellesley ­College, where she is also Executive Director of the Wellesley Centers for Women. She is the ­author of two groundbreaking books on womanism, The Womanist Reader (2006) and The Womanist Idea (2012), which focus on Black women’s perspectives about social and ecological change. With over 40 book chapters and journal articles, she has also written extensively on racial identity, Black LGBTQ+ studies, Hip Hop studies, and the history of Black psychology. Professor Maparyan has twice been named a Fulbright Specialist, and, in 2010, she served at the University of Liberia to help develop an African-­centered model gender studies curriculum. In terms of civic engagement, she has served as a consultant (2011–2012) for the Center for Civil and Human Rights in Atlanta, and she is currently the incoming Co-Chair of the Board of Directors of the Global Fund for Women. Born into an interracial Baha’í family, and as a graduate of an Historically Black College and University (HBCU), Spelman College, Layli’s interest in race and racism, as well as the solution of racial issues, has been lifelong. In the past few years, she has presented numerous workshops on race, race ­amity, and racial justice at diverse venues inside and outside academia. Notably, in 2015, she visited Germany at the invitation of the U.S. Embassy in Berlin as a Black History Month speaker.