Orisanmi Burton is a husband, father, and an assistant professor of anthropology at American University. His research employs innovative ethnographic and archival methods to examine historical collisions between Black radical organizations and state repression in the United States. Dr. Burton’s work has been published in North American Dialogue, The Black Scholar, American Anthropologist, Radical History Review among other outlets and has received support from the Wenner-Gren Foundation, the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University, and The Margarite Casey Foundation, which selected him as a 2021 Freedom Scholar. Burton's new book, Tip of the Spear: Black Radicalism, Prison Repression, and the Long Attica Revolt is a radical reinterpretation of "Attica," the revolutionary 1970s uprising that galvanized abolitionist movements and transformed prisons.
