Omar H. Ali

Omar H. Ali is on the faculty of the Program in African American and Diaspora Studies at Vanderbilt University. He has served as an assistant professor of history at Towson University and as an editor for Souls: A Critical Journal of Black Politics, Culture, and Society. A Fulbright Scholar, he has received research grants from Harvard University and the University of Michigan. He is an honors graduate of the London School of Economics and Political Science and received his PhD from Columbia University.

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Author of…

In the Balance of Power

Independent Black Politics and Third-Party Movements in the United States

Historically, most black voters in the United States have aligned themselves with one of the two major parties: the Republican Party from the time of the Civil War to the New Deal and, since the New Deal—and especially since the height of the modern civil rights movement—the Democratic Party.…