A graduate of Howard University, Alycee Lane studied English literature and later obtained her Doctorate of Philosophy from UCLA, where she specialized in African American literature and culture of the civil rights and black power movements. From 1995 to 2003, she served as an Assistant Professor of English at the University of California, Santa Barbara, after which she obtained her Juris Doctor from UC Berkeley (Boalt Hall).

Alycee is author of the award-winning book, Nonviolence Now! Living the 1963 Birmingham Campaign's Promise of Peace (Lantern Books, 2015). She also authors the blog Coming in From the Cold, in which she explores political issues through the prism of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s philosophy of nonviolence.