Timothy B. Tyson is senior research scholar at the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University, where he also has appointments in the Divinity School and the History Department. He is also in the American Studies Department at UNC-Chapel Hill.

Tyson is co-editor with David S. Cecelski of "Democracy Betrayed: The Wilmington Race Riot of 1898 and Its Legacy," which won the 1999 Outstanding Book Award from the Gustavus Myers Center for the Study of Human Rights.

His most recent book, "Blood Done Sign My Name," recounts a racial murder committed in the town of Oxford in 1970 and the African-American uprising that followed. UNC-CH selected the book for its 2005 Summer Reading Program. "Blood" was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, and won the Southern Book Award for nonfiction from the Southern Book Critics Circle, a Christopher Award and the North Caroliniana Award.

Born in Raleigh in 1959, Tyson grew up in Sanford, Oxford, Wilmington and Fayetteville, where his father served as a Methodist minister and his mother taught fourth grade. He lives in Chapel Hill with his wife, Perri Morgan, and their children, Hope and Sam.