J.T. Roane is assistant professor of Africana Studies and Geography and Andrew W. Mellon chair in Global Racial Justice in the Institute for the Study of Global Racial Justice at Rutgers University. He received his Ph.D. in history from Columbia University and he is a 2008 graduate of the Carter G. Woodson Institute at the University of Virginia. His book Dark Agoras: Insurgent Black Social Life and the Politics of Place was published in 2023 with New York University Press. Roane's short experimental film Plot received support from Princeton's Crossroads Fellowship. He also currently serves as a member of Just Harvest—Tidewater, an Indigenous and Black led organization building toward food sovereignty and justice in Virginia’s historical plantation region through political and practical education.