From the early days of America, the idea of race was not a neutral descriptor but inextricably bound up with white supremacy and domination over others.
James O. Horton (1943–2017) was Benjamin Banneker Professor of American Studies and History at George Washington University, and Director of the Afro-American Communities Project of the National Museum of American History at the Smithsonian Institution.
Ira Berlin (1941-2018) was a Distinguished University Professor of History at the University of Maryland. Among his many books are, Generations of Captivity: A History of African American Slaves and Many Thousands Gone: The First Two Centuries of Slavery in America.
Audrey Smedley is currently (2019) Professor Emeritus at Virginia Commonwealth University in anthropology and African-American studies. She is the author of Race in North America: Origins of a Worldview.
Karen Ordahl Kupperman is currently (2019) Professor of History at New York University. She is author of Indians and English: Facing Off in North America and Roanoke: The Lost Colony.
Robert Rydell is currently (2019) Professor of History at Montana State University. He is a specialist on world's fairs, and author of All the World's a Fair.
Theda Perdue is currently (2019) Professor Emerita of History at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Among her books are The Cherokee; Cherokee Women; and the forthcoming "Mixed Blood" Indians: Racial Construction in the Early South.