Charles E. Cobb, Jr. is a distinguished journalist and former member of *National Geographic Magazine's* editorial staff. He currently is Senior Writer and Diplomatic Correspondent for AllAfrica.com, the leading online provider of news from and about Africa. From 1962-1967 he served as a field secretary for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in Mississippi. He began his journalism career in 1974 as a reporter for WHUR Radio in Washington, D.C. In 1976 he joined the staff of National Public Radio as a foreign affairs reporter, bringing to that network its first regular coverage of Africa. From 1985 to 1997, Cobb was a *National Geographic* staff member, traveling the globe to write stories on places from Eritrea to Russia's Kuril Islands. He is also the co-author, with civil rights organizer and educator Robert P. Moses, of *Radical Equations, Civil Rights from Mississippi to the Algebra Project*.