Alice Randall

Alice Randall

Professor and Writer-in-Residence, Department of African American and Diaspora Studies; Andrew W. Mellon Chair in the Humanities, Vanderbilt University

Alice Randall, whose groundbreaking contributions to American music history include being writing a Grammy nominated protest song about a lynching, The Ballad of Sally Ann, along with other internationally acclaimed protest songs, and being the first Black woman to cowrite a number one country hit, Trisha Yearwood’s “XXX’s and OOO’s (An American Girl).” Long known as a novelist working in the tradition of Richard Wright and James Baldwin she is the author of multiple protest novels including the New York Times bestseller The Wind Done Gone, and Rebel Yell. A graduate of Harvard University she teaches Protest Literature at Vanderbilt University.

Randall will not be talking about her most recent work on Black Country Music at this talk. If you want to hear about that come back to Fisk on March 31 for the Kick-off to the Fisk Spring Arts Festival.