Melissa V. 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 and opinion television show on MSNBC from 2012 to February 27, 2016.

Harris-Perry was born to a white mother and a 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 African-American affairs dean 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 Ph.D. 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 the 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 a 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).In 2008 she underwent a hysterectomy due to uterine fibroids.

In 2010 she married attorney James Perry. He is the CEO of the Winston-Salem Urban League. On 14 February 2014, their daughter was born via gestational carrier. She is Harris-Perry’s second child. In April 2015, the Winston-Salem Journal reported that the IRS had placed a tax lien on the property of Harris-Perry and her husband for about $70,000 in delinquent taxes. Harris-Perry said she and her husband paid $21,721 on April 15, 2015, and have a payment plan with the IRS.