James Lankford (born March 4, 1968) is the U.S. Representative for Oklahoma's 5th congressional district. He is a member of the Republican Party.

From 1996-2009 he was the student ministries and evangelism specialist for the Baptist General Convention of Oklahoma, and was director of the Falls Creek youth programing at the Falls Creek Baptist Conference Center in Davis, Oklahoma. He stepped down on September 1, 2009 to run for Congress.

Lankford was born in Dallas, Texas. His mother was a public school librarian and homemaker. His father is a retired engineer. Some of his grandparents owned a small dry cleaning business. His ancestors were dairy farmers. James’ stepfather was a Navy veteran and a career employee of AC Delco, the parts division of General Motors.

He attended the University of Texas, where he received a Bachelor of Science degree in Secondary Education. He then attended Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and received a master’s degree in Divinity.

After graduating, he moved to Edmond and served with the Baptist General Convention of Oklahoma. He became the Program Director of Falls Creek, the largest Christian camp in the U.S. with over 51,000 people attending in 2009.

The term black people is used in some socially-based systems of racial classification for humans of a dark-skinned phenotype, relative to other racial groups represented in a particular social context. Different societies apply different criteria regarding who is classified as "black", and often social variables such as class and socio-economic status also play a role, so that relatively dark-skinned people can be classified as white if they fulfill other social criteria of "whiteness" and relatively light-skinned people can be classified as black if they fulfill the social criteria for "blackness" in a particular setting.

As a biological phenotype being "black" is often associated with the very dark skin colors of some people who are classified as "black". But, particularly in the United States, the racial or ethnic classification also refers to people with all possible kinds of skin pigmentation from the darkest through to the very lightest skin colors, including albinos, if they are believed by others to have African ancestry, or to exhibit cultural traits associated with being "African-American". As a result, in the United States the term "black people" is not an indicator of skin color but of socially based racial classification.