Ancella Radford Bickley is an American historian born in Huntington, West Virginia on July 4, 1930. She earned a bachelor's degree in English from West Virginia State College, now West Virginia State University in 1950, a master's degree in English from Marshall University (where she was the first full-time African American student) in 1954, and an Ed.D. in English from West Virginia University in 1974. She is involved in the preservation of African American history in West Virginia.