Nurse administrator and nurse Lorna E. Chambers-Andrade was born on March 3, 1949 in Boston, Massachusetts to Oriel and Curtis Chambers. Chambers-Andrade received her A.S. degree in nursing from Lasell Junior College in Newton, Massachusetts in 1972, her B.S. degree in nursing from Boston State College in 1978, her M.Ed. degree in education administration from Cambridge College in Boston in 1986, and both her M.B.A. degree and her Ph.D. degree in health administration and management from the Union College Graduate School in Schenectady, New York in 1993.

Chambers-Andrade worked as a nurse for over forty-five years at acute care and teaching hospitals around the Boston area. At the Windemere Nursing and Rehabilitation Center, Chambers-Andrade co-founded the LPN nursing program with Upper Cape Cod Regional Education. Chambers-Andrade taught at numerous colleges and universities in the Boston area including Massachusetts Bay Community College, where she served as a professor of nursing education, and the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth, where she worked as a professor of gerontology. Chambers-Andrade also served as a professor and advisor at the Nathan Mayhew Seminars for over twelve years. After retiring from nursing and teaching, Chambers-Andrade continued to work as a consultant for the Windemere Nursing and Rehabilitation Center and Martha’s Vineyard Hospital. Chambers-Andrade is the co-owner of several shops in Edgartown, Massachusetts, including Bo-Peep’s Boutique.

In 1984, Chambers-Andrade became a member of the NAACP of Martha’s Vineyard, where she held numerous roles including vice president and served for over forty years. Former Massachusetts Governors Bill Weld and Paul Cellucci appointed Chambers-Andrade to the Massachusetts State Board of Nursing. Additionally, Chambers-Andrade served on the Duke County Health Council for over ten years. Chambers-Andrade became the first African American president of the Martha’s Vineyard League of Women Voters. Chambers-Andrade also founded the Martha’s Vineyard Health Education Collaborative in 2013. Chambers-Andrade worked on the advisory boards of numerous colleges and universities including the University of Massachusetts, Boston, the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth, Bunker Hill Community College, Endicott College, Regis College, and Roxbury Community College. Chambers-Andrade also served as a member of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History, the Brookline Visiting Nurse Association, Martha’s Vineyard Visiting Nurses, Martha’s Vineyard Cottagers, the Edgartown Board of Trade, the Tisbury Board of Trade, the Massachusetts Board of Registration in Nursing, Polar Bears, Inc., the advisory board of the US Slave Songs Project, Inc., and the New England Regional Black Nurses Association as president.

Throughout her career, Chambers-Andrade received numerous awards and honors including the Human and Civil Rights Award from the Massachusetts Teachers Association in 1996, a Certificate of Appreciation from Dorothy’s Corner in 2024, and a Distinguished Achiever Medal from the Association for the Study of African American Life and History in 2024. Chambers-Andrade also served as a member of the Sigma Theta Tau International Honor Society.

Lorna E. Chambers-Andrade was interviewed by The HistoryMakers on July 31, 2024.

Sociologist and columnist Tressie McMillan Cottom was born in the Harlem neighborhood of New York City on October 9, 1976. McMillan Cottom received her B.A. degree in English and political science from North Carolina Central University in Durham in 2009 and her Ph.D. degree in sociology from Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, in 2015.

While completing her Ph.D. degree, McMillan Cottom served as a graduate research assistant at Emory University from 2012 to 2015. In 2013, McMillan Cottom also worked as a columnist for Slate Magazine. McMillan Cottom then became an editorial writer for Medium.com and a contributing writer for The Atlantic in 2015. In 2014, McMillan Cottom served as a Ph.D. research intern at the Microsoft Social Sciences Research Labs in Cambridge, Massachusetts. After graduating from Emory University, McMillan Cottom became an assistant professor at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia in 2015, where she was promoted to associate professor in 2019. In 2020, McMillan Cottom became an associate professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and was promoted to professor in 2024 and served as a senior research fellow for the Center for Information, Technology, and Public Life (CITAP). McMillan Cottom also served as a faculty affiliate at Harvard University’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society. McMillan Cottom joined The New York Times as an opinion columnist in 2022. McMillan Cottom has also written for The Washington Post and while making appearances on The Daily Show with Trevor Noah. McMillan Cottom published numerous books with the New Press including Lower Ed: The Troubling Rise of For-Profit Colleges in the New Economy in 2016 and THICK: And Other Essays in 2019.

McMillan Cottom served as a member of the American Sociology Association, social media co-director for Division J of the American Educational Research Association, vice-president of the Coalition of Graduate Sociologists, co-chair of the Academic Justice Committee of the Sociologists for Women in Society, and as a judge and chair for the Non-Fiction panel of the National Book Foundation.

Throughout her career, McMillan Cottom received numerous awards and honors including the Feminist Activist Scholar Award from Sociologists for Women in Society in 2017, the Outstanding Early Career Faculty Award from Virginia Commonwealth University in 2018, the Brookyln Public Library Literacy Award in Non-Fiction and a National Book Award Shortlist for THICK: And Other Essays in 2019, a Doris Entwisle Early Career Award from the American Sociological Association in 2019, the Public Understanding of Sociology Award from the American Sociological Association in 2020, the Public Sociology Award from Communication, Information Technology, and Media Sociology (CITAMS) in 2023, and the Joseph B. and Toby Gittler Prize from Brandeis University in 2023. In 2020, McMillan Cottom received a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship.

Tressie McMillan Cottom was interviewed by The HistoryMakers on April 9, 2023.

Theologian and divinity school professor Jonathan Lee Walton was born on June 22, 1973 in Frederick, Maryland to Rose Marie Walton and John Henry Eugene Walton. Walton received his B.A. degree in political science from Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia in 1996. Walton also earned both his M.Div. degree in Christian social ethics in 2002 and his Ph.D. degree in religion and society in 2006 from the Princeton Theological Seminary in Princeton, New Jersey.

While completing his Ph.D. degree, Walton worked as a lecturer in Princeton University’s Department of Religion and the program in African American Studies. After graduating in 2006, Walton moved to Riverside, California, where he served as an assistant professor of religious studies at the University of California, Riverside. Walton then joined Harvard Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts as an assistant professor of African American religions in 2010. In 2012, Walton was promoted to professor of religion in society, a role he held for seven years. During this period, Walton also served as the Plummer Professor of Christian Morals and Pusey minister in the Memorial Church at Harvard University. Walton became the presidential chair in religion and society and the dean of the School of Divinity at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina in 2019. In 2023, Walton returned to his alma mater, the Princeton Theological Seminary, as its 8th president and a professor of religion and society. Throughout his career, Walton has published numerous academic articles, magazine articles, newspaper articles, and books, including Watch This!: The Ethics and Aesthetics of Black Televangelism with the New York University Press in 2009 and A Lens of Love: Reading the Bible in Its World for Our World with Westminster John Knox Press in 2018.

Walton served on the board of directors for Atrium Health, the Humanities Advancement Council at Morehouse College, the National Advisory Board of the John C. Danforth Center on Religion and Politics at Washington University in St. Louis, and the American Academy of Religion’s AAR Nominations Committee, Religion, Media & Culture Group Steering Committee, and Afro American Religious History Group Steering Committee.

Walton has received numerous awards and honors including an Honorary Doctorate of Divinity degree from Wake Forest University in 2015 and the Benjamin Elijah Mays Distinguished Alumni Award in Religion from Morehouse College in 2016. Walton served as a resident fellow at the University of California, Riverside’s Center for Ideas and Society in 2007 and as a young scholar at Indiana University-Purdue University’s Center for Religion and American Culture from 2009 to 2011.

Walton and his wife, Cecily Cline Walton, have three children: Zora Neale, Elijah Mays, and Baldwin Cline.

Jonathan Lee Walton was interviewed by The HistoryMakers on April 21, 2023.

Healthcare executive Dr. John R. Lumpkin was born on July 28, 1951 in Chicago, Illinois to Beatrice Shapiro Lumpkin and Frank Lumpkin. In 1969, Lumpkin attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge. Lumpkin received his B.M.Sc. degree in general biology in 1973 and his M.D. degree in 1975 from Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. Lumpkin also earned his M.P.H. degree in health administration from the University of Illinois at Chicago in 1985.

After receiving his M.D. degree, Lumpkin completed his internship in anesthesia in 1975 and his residency in emergency medicine in 1978 at the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine, making him the first African American emergency medicine resident in the United States. Lumpkin joined the University of Chicago Hospitals as an emergency medicine faculty member in 1978. In 1985, Lumpkin worked as an associate director of the Illinois Department of Public Health, where he became the agency’s first African American director in 1990. He then served as director of the Illinois Department of Public Health for over twelve years from 1990 to 2003. During this period, Lumpkin also worked as the president of the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials. After leaving the Illinois Department of Public Health, Lumpkin joined the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation in Princeton, New Jersey as senior vice president in 2003, a role he held for sixteen years before, in 2019, becoming the president of the Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina Foundation. At Blue Shield Blue Cross North Carolina, Lumpkin also held the positions of vice president of drivers of health strategy and executive strategic counselor of corporate social responsibility. In addition, Lumpkin taught at numerous educational institutions including the University of Chicago, Northwestern University, and the University of Illinois’s School of Public health.

In 1996, Lumpkin became the chairman of the National Committee on Vital and Health Statistics. Lumpkin also served as a member of the American Heart Association, the American College of Emergency Physicians, the American Public Health Association, the National Academy of Medicine, the American Medical Association, and the National Medical Association.

Lumpkin received numerous awards and honors including the Alan Donaldson Memorial Award from the University of Illinois School of Public Health in 1986, a Distinguished Alumni Award from the University of Illinois Chicago in 1997, the Jonas Salk Health Leadership Award from the Chicago March of Dimes in 1998, the Arthur McCormack Excellence and Dedication in Public Health Award from the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials in 1999, the Council Meritorious Service Award from the American College of Emergency Physicians in 2000, the Henrietta Herbolsheimer, M.D. Public Service Award from the Chicago Medical Society in 2003, a Lifetime Achievement Award from the State of Illinois Emergency Medical Services Advisory Council in 2015, and a Distinguished Medical Alumni Award from Northwestern University in 2020.

Dr. John R. Lumpkin was interviewed by The HistoryMakers on April 22, 2023, and April 11, 2024.

Mayor Howard Nathaniel Lee was born on July 28, 1951 in Lithonia, Georgia to Lou Tempie Barnes Lee and Howard Lee. Lee received his B.A. degree in sociology from Fort Valley State College in Fort Valley, Georgia in 1959 and his M.A. degree from the School of Social Work at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1966.

After graduating from Fort Valley State College, Lee served in the U.S. Army Medical Corps. In 1961, Lee became a probation officer in Savannah, Georgia. After graduating with his M.A. degree, Lee worked as an administrator at Duke University and as a visiting faculty member at North Carolina Central University in Durham, North Carolina from 1966 to 1975. In 1969, Lee was elected as the first African American mayor of Chapel Hill, North Carolina, making him the first African American mayor to be elected in a majority-white city in the South United States, where he served for three terms. In 1977, under Governor Jim Hunt, Lee joined the North Carolina Department of Natural Resources and Community Development as a secretary. In 1982, Lee also worked as a faculty member at his alma mater, the School of Social Work at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for nine years. In 1990, Lee was elected as a state senator with the North Carolina General Assembly, where he served for thirteen years. Lee became the first African American chairman of the North Carolina Board of Education in 2003. Lee also worked as a commissioner for the North Carolina Utilities Commission until 2009. During this period, Lee published his memoir, The Courage to Lead, One Man’s Journey in Public Service in 2008. In 2009, Lee was appointed by Governor Beverly Perdue as the first executive director of the North Carolina Education Cabinet and he served in this role until 2011, when he created the Howard N. Lee Institute, which focuses on preparing minority and disadvantaged high school students for success.

Throughout his career, Lee received numerous awards and honors including the Distinguished Service Medal from the University of North Carolina General Alumni Association (now the Carolina Alumni) in 1999, the North Carolina Award for Public Service from the State of North Carolina in 2015, and the North Caroliniana Society Award in 2021. He also received an Honorary Doctor of Laws degree from his alma mater, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, in 2024. Fort Valley State University named the Howard Nathaniel Lee Circle in 2019, and the City of Chapel Hill named the Howard and Lillian Lee Transit Operation Center in 2022.

Lee lives with his wife, Lillian, in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. They have three children, two grandchildren, and one great grandchild.

The Honorable Howard Nathaniel Lee was interviewed by The HistoryMakers on April 23, 2023.

Artistic director Mabel P. Robinson was born on January 19, 1939 in Savannah, Georgia to Eva Queen Esther Huginnie and William Robinson. Robinson graduated from the High School of the Performing Arts and the Juilliard School of Music in New York City.

A director, playwright, dancer, and actress, Robinson performed on Broadway in Golden Boy in 1964, Murderous Angels in 1971, Don’t Bother Me I Can’t Cope in 1972, Treemonisha in 1975, and Your Arms Are Too Short To Box With God in 1976. While performing as the lead in Your Arms Are Too Short To Box With God, Robinson also worked as the choreographer and assistant director of a Broadway revival of Porgy & Bess, making her the first African American woman to have concurrent Broadway shows. In 1980, Robinson returned to Broadway as a choreographer for It’s So Nice to Be Civilized. Robinson also performed with numerous dance companies including the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, the Hava Kohav Dancers, the Juilliard Dance Theatre, and the Martha Graham Dance Company. Robinson appeared in numerous national and international television shows and films including Ossie Davis’s Cotton Comes to Harlem in 1970, Jackie Cooper’s Stand Up to Be Counted in 1972, Herbert Ross’s Funny Lady in 1975, and Sidney Lumet’s The Wiz in 1978. In 1984, Robinson moved to Winston-Salem, North Carolina, to teach dance at the North Carolina School of the Arts. As a playwright, Robinson wrote The Glory of Gospel, which was produced at the International Black Theatre Festival in 1997 and 2015 and Mahalia Queen of Gospel, which was produced at the International Black Theatre Festival in 2005 and 2007. Robinson also served as a producer for the International Black Theatre Festival. At the North Carolina Black Repertory Company, Robinson created the Teen Theatre Ensemble and became the artistic director of the North Carolina Black Repertory Company after the death of its founder, Larry Leon Hamlin, in 2007. During this period, she directed annual productions of Langston Hughes’ Black Nativity before retiring in 2015. Following her retirement, Robinson continued to work in theater as a guest director for a production of The Lates, The Greats, and Moore at the Theatre of Performing Arts of Shreveport and as the dramaturg and production consultant of Nathan R. Freeman’s Little Girl Blue in 2018.

Robinson served as a member of the Actors’ Equity Association (AEA), the Screen Actors Guild (SAG), and the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society (SDC).

Throughout her career, Robinson received numerous awards and honors including the Seventy Over Seventy Award from the Hannan Center in 2016 and the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Artists Celebrating Excellence (ACE) Awards in 2022. In 2022, the International Black Theatre Festival created the Mabel P. Robinson Emerging Artist Awards.

Mabel P. Robinson was interviewed by The HistoryMakers on April 19, 2023.

Football coach William “Bill” Hayes was born on June 1, 1943 in Durham, North Carolina to Margaret Baines Hayes and James E. Hayes. Hayes graduated from Hillside High School in Durham, North Carolina, where he played on the football team. Hayes received his B.P.E. degree in physical education from North Carolina Central University in 1965 where he played football as a center and linebacker, earning three All-American citations.

Hayes worked as an assistant high school football coach at Northside High School in Gretha, Virginia in 1965, Paisley High School in 1966, and North Forsyth High School in Winston-Salem, North Carolina in 1967. In 1972, Hayes returned to his alma mater, Hillside High School, as an assistant football coach and, in 1973, Hayes joined Wake Forest University, making him the first African American football coach in the Atlantic Coast Conference. Hayes then became the head football coach at Winston-Salem State University in 1976, where the Winston-Salem State University football team went undefeated in the 1977 and 1978 regular seasons and won three Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association (CIAA) championships as well as seven division championships over a ten-year period. Hayes then joined North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University in 1988, where he led the football team to the Sheridan Broadcasting Network Black College National Championship in 1999. Hayes worked as a head college football coach for twenty-seven seasons, amassing a 195-104-2 overall record and completing his coaching career with more victories than any other head college football coach in North Carolina state history. Hayes went on to serve as the athletic director at his alma mater, North Carolina Central State University, for four years beginning in 2003. Hayes then became the athletic director of Florida A&M University in Tallahassee, Florida in 2007. In 2009, Hayes returned to Winston-Salem State University as the athletic director before his retirement in 2014.

Hayes served in numerous organizations including the Boy Scouts of the USA’s Southern Region Executive Board.

Hayes received numerous awards and honors including the Silver Antelope Award from the Boy Scouts of the USA in 2001, the Athletics Director of the Year Award from the CIAA in 2006, the Jeanette A. Lee Athletic Administration Award from the CIAA in 2007, the North Carolina Central University Department of Athletics Lifetime Achievement Award in 2016, and the Atlantic Coast Conference UNITE Award in 2024. Hayes has been inducted into the following halls of fame: the Winston-Salem State University Clarence E. “Big House” Gaines Athletic Hall of Fame, the Alex M. Rivera Athletics Hall of Fame in 1986, the CIAA John B. McLendon, Jr. Hall of Fame in 2007, the North Carolina A&T State University Sports Hall of Fame in 2008, the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference Hall of Fame in 2014, and the Black College Football Hall of Fame in 2017.

William “Bill” Hayes was interviewed by The HistoryMakers on April 19, 2023.

City councilman Goldie Frinks Wells was born in Edenton, North Carolina, to Golden Asro Frinks and Ruth H. Frinks on November 8, 1942. Wells received her B.Ed. degree from the Hampton Institute in Hampton, Virginia, her M.S. degree in education, elementary and administration from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University in Greensboro, North Carolina, and her Ed.D. degree in administration, elementary education and teaching from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Wells served as a teacher for the Wake County School System and the Guilford County School System. In 1985, Wells became the Title I director for the Iredell-Statesville County School System for nine years before working as a part-time instructor at Guilford College in Greensboro. From 1994 to 1996, Wells served as the president of Saints Academy and College in Lexington, Mississippi. In 2005, Bishop G. E. Patterson appointed Wells as the director of the Charles Harrison Mason Jurisdictional Institutes, a religious education program. In the same year, Wells was elected to the Greensboro City Council for four years and became the District 2 representative. Then, after over a decade, in 2017, Wells was appointed to fill a vacancy in District 2 before winning re-election in 2017 and serving as a District 2 representative for over five years. In 2009, Wells and Crystal Sanders published a biography of Wells’ father titled Golden Asro Frinks: Telling the Unsung Song: A Biography of a Civil Rights Activist through Aardvark Global Publishing.

Wells served as a co-chair for the North Carolina Freedom Monument Park in Raleigh, the chair of the Interactive Resource Center in Greensboro, and the chair of I CARE, Inc. in Statesville, North Carolina and East Greensboro Now. She also served as district missionary for the High Point District of the Greater North Carolina Jurisdiction Church of God in Christ. Wells was also a member the Citizens for Economic and Environmental Justice (CEEJ), Building Stronger Neighborhoods, the Concerned Citizens of Northeast Greensboro, the Greensboro Voters Alliance, the board of the Wells Memorial Church of God in Christ in Greensboro, the Welfare Reform Liaison Project, Inc., and the board of All Saints Bible College in Memphis, Tennessee. Wells also served on the board of trustees of Bennett College.

Throughout her career, Wells received numerous awards and honors including an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters degree from the Charles H. Mason Seminary in 2021, the “Power 100” Award from Black Business Ink in 2023, and the Whitney M. Young Award from the Boy Scouts of America’s Old North State Council in 2024.

The Honorable Goldie Frinks Wells was interviewed by The HistoryMakers on April 15, 2023.

Corporate executive Johnnie Brooks Booker was born on July 31, 1941 in Forsyth, Georgia to Willie Floyd Brooks and Lillian Goodwyne Brooks Graves. She received her B.S. degree in social sciences and sociology from the Hampton Institute in Hampton, Virginia and her M.S.W. degree in community organization from the Atlanta University School of Social Work (now Clark Atlanta University) in Atlanta, Georgia.

Booker worked for the New York Department of Welfare before moving to Washington, D.C., where she served as a teacher for the Manpower Development Program and Training Program and was later hired by the D.C. Department of Rehabilitation in 1964. Prior to attending Atlanta University, Booker also worked with the Neighborhood Youth Corps. After graduation, she worked for the Los Angeles Community Redevelopment Agency and the Western Regional Office of the National Urban League. She returned to Washington D.C. with the Washington Bureau of the National Urban League. She later joined the federal government with The Federal Home Loan Bank Board as director of consumer affairs and civil rights. In 1989, Booker was appointed as deputy assistant secretary for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). In 1991, she joined the Resolution Trust Corporation (RTC), where she served as vice president of the Division of Minority and Women’s Programs until 1995. Following the closure of RTC, she became the director of the Federal Deposit Corporation (FDIC)’s Office of Equal Opportunity until her retirement in 1996. In 2001, Booker returned to Atlanta where she served as the global director of supplier diversity at the Coca-Cola Company until 2011. In this capacity, she created a mentoring program for Minority and Women-owned Business Enterprises (MWBEs) to enhance their capacity. In 2007, Booker also spearheaded the inclusion of minority developers and contractors in the construction of The World of Coca-Cola Museum. Upon retiring from the Cola-Cola Company in 2012, Booker created and served as president and CEO of The Johnnie Booker Group.

During her career, Booker was active in numerous organizations including the American Society for Public Administration, Circle-Let’s, Atlanta Chapter, Utopian Literary Club, Delta Theta Sigma Sorority, Inc., The Links, Inc., National Council of Negro Women, Delta Airlines Supplier Diversity Council, NAACP, Urban League, and the Hampton University Alumni Association. She also served on the boards of Women of Washington, Women in Housing and Finance, National Minority Supplier Development Council, Women’s Business Enterprise National Council, Fort Valley State University Foundation, and The Delta Research and Education Foundation (DREF).

Booker received numerous awards and honors including two Congressional Resolutions from the U.S. House of Representatives, the Hampton University Alumnae of the Year Award in 2009, and the Community Service Award from the Quinnipiac’s Black Law Students Association (BLSA) in 2022.

Booker resides in Atlanta, Georgia. She has one son, S. Courtney Booker III, and two grandchildren, Dalyn and Aiden.

Johnnie Brooks Booker was interviewed by The HistoryMakers on April 16, 2023.

Historian Mark Anthony Neal was born on December 2, 1965 in Bronx, New York to Arthur C. Neal Jr. and Elsie Robinson. Neal received his B.A. degree in English in 1987 and his M.A. degree in English in 1993 from the State University of New York at Fredonia. In 1996, Neal earned his Ph.D. degree in American Studies from the State University of New York at Buffalo.

After graduating with his Ph.D. degree, Neal worked as a visiting scholar at the University of Pittsburgh at Bradford in 1995 and, in 1996, as an assistant professor in the African American Studies Program at Xavier University of Louisiana in New Orleans. Neal was then hired as an assistant professor of Africana Studies and English at the State University of New York at Albany in 1997. In 2003, Neal joined the University of Texas at Austin as an associate professor of American Studies. Then, in 2004, Neal joined Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, where he was promoted to the James B. Duke distinguished professor of African American Studies and English in 2018.

Neal has published numerous book chapters, journal articles, and books including What the Music Said: Black Popular Music and Black Public Culture in 1998, Soul Babies: Contemporary Black Popular Culture and the Post-Soul Aesthetic in 2001, Songs in the Key of Black Life: A Rhythm and Blues Nation in 2003, New Black Man: Rethinking Black Masculinity in 2005, Looking for Leroy: Illegible Black Masculinities in 2013, New Black Man: 10th Anniversary Edition in 2015, and Black Ephemera: The Crisis and Challenge of the Musical Archive in 2022. Neal also served as a contributor for numerous publications including the HuffPost, The Root.com, Vibe.com, NPR News and Notes with Farai Chideya, SeeingBlack.com, and Popmatters.com. In 2005, Neal created his blog NewBlackMan (in Exile), where he served as the founder and managing editor.

In 2010, Neal created the Left of Black web series through the John Hope Franklin Center for International and Global Studies, the John Franklin Hope Humanities Institute, and Trinity College of Arts & Sciences. Neal also served as a member of Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity, Inc. and the Modern Language Association.

During his career, Neal received numerous awards and honors including a Distinguished Alumni Award from the State University of New York in 1997, the Robert B. Cox Award for Distinguished Teaching from Duke University in 2010, the Hip-Hop Scholar of the Year Award from the Words, Beats and Life Foundation in 2012, the Richard A. Yarborough Award from the Minority Scholars Committee of the American Studies Association in 2015, and the PROSE Award in the Music and Performing Arts Category for Black Ephemera from the Association of American Publishers in 2023.

Mark Anthony Neal was interviewed by The HistoryMakers on April 21, 2023.