The author of Black Populism in the New South (University Press of Mississippi) and contributing author to History in Dispute: American Social and Political Movements, 1945-2000 (St. James Press), he has served as a guest editor for Souls: A Critical Journal of Black Politics, Culture, and Society (Spring 2005) and is a contributing editor to The Neo-Independent: The Politics of Becoming. Ali has been invited to speak at colleges across the nation regarding the growth of independent politics. Polls taken by CNN, Gallup, and the Pew Research Center, show that nearly 40% of Americans today self-identify as politically independent (neither Democrat nor Republican).

In the wake of the independent political upsurge spurred by Ross Perot in 1992, Ali reached out to independents around the country. His contribution to the national effort to bring independents together from around the country into a pro-reform political party coalesced in the formation of the Patriot Party in 1994 followed by the national Reform Party one year later. Throughout, Ali worked to increase the presence of young voters in the party and in the larger independent movement.

Born in Lima, Peru, to South American and East Indian parents, Ali began college at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. While at Michigan, he was awarded an Oxford House scholarship and received research grants from the Lilly Endowment and the Mellon Foundation to work as a research assistant to Prof. Maxwell Owusu, an advisor to the Committee of Experts on the Ghanaian Constitution. Their research on Ghana helped to inform the rewriting of the country’s constitution in 1993.

Upon graduation from the London School of Economics, he returned to the U.S. to work as a national field organizer for Dr. Lenora Fulani’s independent presidential campaign–which focused on the need for an open and equitable electoral process. Following the campaign, he worked in the Department of Public Information at the United Nations, before being awarded a fellowship to complete his doctorate at Columbia. Under the supervision of Prof. Eric Foner, his dissertation documents the role of African Americans in the rise of the People’s Party in the period following the collapse of Reconstruction and before the consolidation of Jim Crow.

Recognized for his innovative research and engaging teaching style, he was invited to serve as a Lecturer at Columbia’s Institute for Research in African American Studies after serving as a Visiting Scholar at the Center for the Study of the American South at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Among his current responsibilities, he is a consultant to the World History Advanced Placement examinations for the College Board and a historical commentator for the Spanish-language television network Telemundo. His publications include articles and essays for Oxford University Press, St. James Press, MacMillan, and Greenwood Press.

Politically, he has served as a co-convener for the national conference “Choosing an Independent President,” aired on C-SPAN. The conference, which was attended by over 800 independents, including dozens of student leaders from community colleges, state schools, and Ivy League institutions, was designed to initiate a process through which independents can assert their voice in the presidential selection process.

Ali, who has been a district leader for the Independence Party of New York, the country’s largest and fastest growing third party, teaches the “Politics and the People” educational series in Maryland.