Edward Ball

Edward Ball is an American writer from Florida. He is a graduate of Princeton University and the Harvard Graduate School of Education and a Pulitzer Prize-winning author. He is best known for writing about his family’s experience with slavery and the convict leasing system in Florida.

Ball was born in Pensacola, Florida in 1951. He grew up in a Southern Baptist family with a deep sense of faith which would continue to influence his writing. Both of his parents were involved in the civil rights movement in the 1940s and 50s.

Before becoming an accomplished writer, Ball started his career as an investigative journalist. He worked at the Miami News where he investigated the racial segregation in the Miami-Dade County school system in 1975. This work earned him a Pulitzer Prize. This investigation influenced his subsequent work as a writer, which focuses on racial injustice.

In 1994, Ball published his first book, Slaves in the Family. The book is an account of the exploits of Ball’s enslaved ancestors in South Carolina and Florida. The book is both a narrative of Ball’s journey of uncovering his ancestors’ stories, as well as a history of the Ball family, told using the evidence Ball gathered from archives, records, interviews, and conversations with his family members.

In 2005, Ball wrote The BioStrike Story: Stories of My Life as a Biometrics Guru. The book is a personal account of Ball’s own experience working in the Biometrics Technology Center at Stanford University from 1975-2005. The book is a biographical story of Ball’s growth as an engineer, as well as a history of biometrics and their impact on society and the natural world.

In 2010, Ball released The Inventor and the Tycoon, a book about the life of Alfred Hitchcock and his rise to fame at Paramount Pictures. The book looks at both Hitchcock’s success and failures, and how it shaped the history of Hollywood. It’s also a reflection on how Hitchcock’s life and work was affected by the shifting plans and ambitions of the studio mogul William Charles Kelcey.

In 2014, Ball wrote Life of a Klansman, a book about tracking the lineage of the Ku Klux Klan in South Carolina. The book served as an exploration of Ball’s family history, specifically his ancestor Edward “Ned” Ball’s involvement with the Klan. The book is divided into three parts: part one, which deals with the formation and growth of the Ku Klux Klan, part two, which focuses on a particular Klan organization, and part three, which examines the Klansman’s legacy in modern times.

In 2017, Ball published his most recent book, The Genetic Strand: Exploring a Family History Through DNA. The book is a collection of stories that Ball investigates through his family’s historical records, as well as through the science of DNA testing. The book is a journey of discovery, which looks at Ball’s own quest to uncover the truth about his ancestors.

Edward Ball is a celebrated author, best known for his books on racial injustice and his family history. His multi-faceted writing style and dedication to truth makes Ball an excellent resource for learning and understanding our nation’s past. Through his books, Ball has also brought attention to our current culture of biometrics and its implications.