Aaron Vincent McGruder[1] (born May 29, 1974)[2] is an American writer, cartoonist, and producer best known for creating The Boondocks, a Universal Press Syndicate comic strip[3][4] and its animated TV series adaptation.

[2] When Aaron was six years old, his family moved to Columbia, Maryland, after his father accepted a job with the National Transportation Safety Board.

The Boondocks briefly appeared as a comic strip in the University of Maryland's newspaper The Diamondback, during Jayson Blair's tenure as editor-in-chief.

In 2013, McGruder expressed interest in filming a movie featuring The Boondocks TV series supporting character Uncle Ruckus.

[14]During a 2003 reception hosted by The Nation, McGruder offended attendees by defiantly expressing his support for Ralph Nader's 2000 presidential bid.

McGruder endured heckling and walkouts as he defended his commitment to left-wing causes, including, he claimed, calling Condoleezza Rice a "mass-murderer" to her face during the 2002 NAACP Image Awards.

[8] In 2009, Richmond, Indiana newspaper Palladium-Item reported that McGruder told a Martin Luther King Day audience at local Earlham College that then-President-elect Barack Obama was "not black".

[15] In 2004, with Reginald Hudlin, McGruder co-authored a graphic novel, Birth of a Nation: A Comic Novel, about African Americans in East St. Louis during an election.