Terry Alford is an author and historian. He received a Ph.D. in history from Mississippi State University and did post-doctoral work in family history at the University of California, Davis.
His interest in the history of race relations led to his writing Prince Among Slaves. This book tells the story of Abdul Rahman, an 18th Century Muslim prince from modern-day Guinea who was captured and sold into slavery in the Old South. Prince Among Slaves was made into an award-winning documentary shown on public television in the United Stated in 2008 to an audience of over four million viewers. The book, republished in 2007 to mark its 30th anniversary in print, was recently translated into Turkish.
Dr. Alford is a founding board member of the Abraham Lincoln Institute of Washington, D.C., and is a recognized authority on John Wilkes Booth and the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln. Dr. Alford makes frequent appearances on television programs and networks such as 20/20, ABC News, the History Channel, the Discovery Network, the Smithsonian Channel, CSPAN, BBC, and PBS. Fortune’s Fool, Dr. Alford’s biography of Booth, was published in 2015 by Oxford University Press and has received exceptional reviews. His research endeavors have been supported by four grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities. He has been an historical consultant on a number of films and documentaries, including Stephen Spielberg’s “Lincoln,” starring Daniel Day-Lewis. He also serves as a member of the Advisory Council for Ford’s Theatre in Washington, DC.
His latest book is In the Houses of their Dead: The Lincolns, the Booths, and the Spirits, published in 2022 to strongly positive reviews. David Adams in Publishers Weekly called it “enthralling…packed with eerie coincidences, amusing anecdotes, momentous twists of fate, and everyday human drama.”
Dr. Alford received the Outstanding Faculty of Virginia Award from the State Council on Higher Education. This is the highest teaching honor given to college and university faculty in the Commonwealth of Virginia.
