David Aronson has worked as a writer and editor at the Southern Poverty Law Center, the US Commission on Civil Rights, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the US Institute of Peace. He also ran his own communications consultancy in Washington DC for many years. He has written articles and op-eds for the New York Times, the Washington Post, the International Herald Tribune, the Chicago Tribune, Dissent, National Review, World Policy Journal, Foreign Policy magazine and elsewhere. He has served as editor of the Civil Rights Magazine, Teaching Tolerance and Migration Policy Review, testified before the US Congress and worked on a documentary on the history of racial violence in the US that won an Academy Award for short documentary. His New York Times op-ed on 'How Congress Devastated Congo' is credited with helping transform the debate on an important element of US policy toward Africa. The son of an anthropologist, he grew up in Nigeria and Cote d'Ivoire and has spent considerable time living and working in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
