Abdul Alkalimat (PhD University of Chicago) is an activist scholar in Black Studies and the Black Liberation Movement. He was one of three founders of OBAC and served as its first Chairperson. An Emeritus Professor at the University of Illinois, Alkalimat wrote the first textbook in Black Studies, Introduction to Afro-American Studies: A Peoples College Primer (1986) that is currently on display at the African American History Museum of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC. He co-edited The Wall of Respect: Public Art and Black Liberation in 1960s Chicago (2017) with Romi Crawford and Rebecca Zorach. He recently published The History of Black Studies (2021).