P. Merle Black (born 1942) is a retired American political scientist. He was formerly Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Political Science at Emory University. He specializes in Southern politics, particularly in the 20th and 21st centuries.^[1][2]

Career

Black attended Harvard University, where he graduated with a bachelor's degree in 1964.^[3] He then joined the Peace Corps, and spent two years teaching in Liberia.^[3] After completing his Peace Corps assignment, Black enrolled as a graduate student at the University of Chicago where he would complete both a Master's Degree and a PhD.^[3] At the start of his graduate studies he focused broadly on global politics, but during the course of his PhD he shifted focus to the politics of the American south.^[3]

In 1970, Black joined the political science faculty at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and in 1989 he moved to Emory University, until his retirement in 2016. https://news.emory.edu/stories/2016/05/er_college_retirees/campus.html

Black's twin brother, Earl Black, was a longtime professor at Rice University, and the two coauthored several books on politics in the Southern United States. These include Politics and Society in the South^[4] and The Vital South.^[5]

Black was President of the Southern Political Science Association from 2002 to 2003.^[6] Black won the Southern Political Science Association's 2004 V. O. Key award, together with Taeku Lee as well as his brother Earl Black.^[7]