Jo-Ann Morgan is Professor Emerita of African American Studies and Art History, Western Illinois University, and author of The Black Arts Movement and the Black Panther Party in American Visual Culture (2019). Prior to becoming a scholar of African American art and culture, Morgan received an MFA in studio art (University of Wyoming), and PhD in American Art History (UCLA). Since reestablishing a full-time
studio practice in 2020, her work has been shown in over twenty solo exhibitions at community art centers and at colleges and universities throughout the country. A retrospective selection of thirty artworks, titled “The Mourning After,” was mounted at the
Franklin Burroughs and Simeon Chapin Art Museum, Myrtle Beach, South Carolina in 2026.