Haki Madhubuti, born Don Luther Lee in 1942, chose his name (“just, justice”; “accurate, precise, dependable”) in 1974. A graduate of the Iowa Writers Workshop and a U.S. Army Veteran, Madhubuti is a major figure in the Black Arts Movement and founder (with Carolyn M. Rodgers and Jewel C. Latimore, later known as Johari Amini) and publisher of Third World Press, the largest independent black-owned press in the United States today. Third World has published books by Gwendolyn Brooks, Sonia Sanchez, Sterling Plumpp, Pearl Cleage, and many others.

Madhubuti is the author of twenty-four titles of poetry and nonfiction, in print runs of over three million, most notably his book Black Men: Obsolete, Single, Dangerous?: The African American Family in Transition. He is also co-founder of the Institute of Positive Education/New Concept Development Center and the Gwendolyn Brooks Center for Black Literature and Creative Writing, and founder of the National Association of Black Book Publishers, the International Literary Hall of Fame for Writers of African Descent, and the National Black Writers Retreat (which he also directs).