Leonard N. Moore is the Vice President for Diversity and Community Engagement and the George Littlefield Professor of American History at The University of Texas at Austin. He is a native of Cleveland, Ohio, and earned his B.A. from Jackson State University in 1993 and his Ph.D. from The Ohio State University in 1998. He was a history professor at Louisiana State University from 1998-2007, where he also directed the African and African American Studies Program and the Pre-Doctoral Scholar’s Institute. He has been at The University of Texas at Austin since 2007 and was made permanent Vice President on June 13, 2018, after having served as interim for a year. At UT Austin he teaches a class on the black power movement and a signature course titled “Race in the Age of Trump.” In the fall semester, he teaches more than 1,000 students across both courses. His innovative, unique, and engaging teaching style was featured as a cover story in the September/October 2015 edition of the Alcalde. Dr. Moore has received a number of teaching awards including the Jean Holloway Award for Excellence in Teaching and the John Warfield Teaching Award. Moore also directs study abroad programs in Beijing and Cape Town, which have become national models for diversifying global education. In 2004, he was awarded the National Urban League Whitney M. Young Award for Urban Leadership in Education.
Professor Moore is the author of three books on black politics, The Defeat of Black Power: Civil Rights and the National Black Political Convention of 1972 (Louisiana State University Press, 2018), Black Rage in New Orleans: Police Brutality and African American Activism from World War II to Hurricane Katrina (Louisiana State University Press, 2010), and Carl B. Stokes and the Rise of Black Political Power in America (University of Illinois Press, 2002). Carl B. Stokes was nominated for the 2002 NAACP Image Award for best non-fiction book. He is currently working on a biography of Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., the controversial pastor, congressman, and civil rights leader. Moore is also active in the Austin community and currently serves as Chairman of the Board for the Austin Area Urban League.