Dr. Komozi Woodard was born July 7, 1949 in Newark, NJ. He is the son Theodore and Helen Collier Woodard. His father was a meatpacker and his mother a school teacher. He began his college work at Dickinson College where her received his B.A. in 1971 He continued at Rutgers University (1984-86). Woodard also attended the University of Pennsylvania where he received his M.A., and Ph.D. Dr Woodard's dissertation which is entitled The Making of the NewArk: Imamu Amiri Baraka (Leroi Jones) The Newark Congress of African People, and The Modern Black Convention Movement: A History of the Black Revolt and The New Nationalism, 1966-1976 exemplifies Dr. Woodard's tremendous interest in African American history, politics, and culture. He places an emphasis on ghetto formation and anti-colonial movements. Woodard is professor of American history at Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, New York and the author of A Nation Within: Baraka and Black Power Politics. During the Black Power Movement, Woodard served as head of economic development for the Temple of Kawaida in Newark, New Jersey, as editor of Unity and Struggle, the organ of the Congress of African People; and ultimately as the leading academic scholar of Baraka's political career.