Dr. Michael Winston earned a B.A. in history magna cum laude by Howard University (1962), where he was appointed to the faculty in1964. A Woodrow Wilson Fellowship and a John Hay Whitney Fellowship enabled him to complete graduate work in European history at the University of California, Berkeley, where he earned an M.A. in French History and a Ph.D. in European History.

Dr. Winston is co-author with Rayford W. Logan of The Negro in the United States, Vol. II (1970), and author of The Howard University Department of History, 1913-1973. He is also co-editor with Rayford W. Logan of The Dictionary of American Negro Biography (1982), and co-editor with Genna Rae McNeil of Historical Judgments Reconsidered (1988).