Derryn Moten

Derryn Moten

Derryn Moten is chair and professor of history in the Department of History and Political Science at Alabama State University in Montgomery, Alabama. His special focus is the period from the U.S. Civil War to the modern Civil Rights Movement, as well as modern penology. His doctoral dissertation, titled “A Gruesome Warning to Black Girls: The August 16, 1912 execution of Virginia Christian,” was an inspiration for Forsaken, a novel by Ross Howell, Jr. He also wrote the introduction for L.D. Reddick’s book Crusader Without Violence: A Biography of Martin Luther King, Jr.  For the Bending the Arc miniseries, Dr. Moten provides key historical commentary on slavery, emancipation, the Civil War, and Reconstruction.