Ron Atkinson

Ron Atkinson teaches African history and is Director of African Studies at the University of South Carolina, where he has won numerous teaching awards. He has lived and worked in Kenya and Uganda in East Africa, Ghana in West Africa, and South Africa. His major focus of research and writing is the Acholi region and people in northern Uganda. He has published The Origins of the Acholi of Uganda (1999), co-wrote Traditional Ways of Coping in Acholi: Cultural Provisions for Reconciliation and Healing from War (2006), and is the author or co-author of numerous articles on Acholi history and contemporary affairs. In addition, for nearly seven years during the political transition from apartheid in South Africa, he assisted in establishing and administering a program to train Black educational leaders, helped develop and co-edited a multi-volume set of materials for that program, and wrote numerous articles on the topic.