Dr. Roy E. Finkenbine is professor of history and co-chair for the History Department at the University of Detroit Mercy.  He teaches courses in African American history, modern Africa, slave resistance, the Civil War era, and the Underground Railroad, and serves as Director of the Black Abolitionist Archive. He received his Doctorate in American Culture Studies from Bowling Green State University in 1982 and joined the Detroit Mercy faculty in 1996.

While on the editorial staff of the Black Abolitionist Papers Project at Florida State University in the 1980s and 1990s, he coedited the five-volume Black Abolitionist Papers, 1830-1865 (1985-1992) and Witness for Freedom: African American Voices on Race, Slavery, and Emancipation (1993). He authored Sources of the African-American Past (1st ed., 1997; 2nd ed., 2004), as well as over a dozen articles and book chapters related to the black abolitionists and the Underground Railroad.

Finkenbine has consulted on museum exhibits, documentary films and television programs on aspects of African American history. His work has been mentioned in Time, The Atlantic, The Washington Post and USA Today, as well as on NPR Radio. His op-eds have appeared in History News Network, Time, Newsweek, RawStory, AlterNet and Faithfully Magazine.

Currently, Finkenbine is completing a book entitled "Freedom Seekers in Indian Country."