The Great Wells of Manning Marable
Melissa Harris-Perry | April 3, 2011
We have suffered a great loss in the passing of Professor Manning Marable. As my Nation colleague John Nichols wrote yesterday [1], the coming weeks will be filled with tributes to Manning’s life and work. He was, as John says, “one of America’s truest public intellectuals.”
Manning was an unflinching and breathtakingly prolific scholar whose commitments to racial, economic, gender, and international justice were unparalleled. In decades of weekly columns, hundreds of academic journal articles and a dozen books, Manning has already written his own legacy. But despite the fact that we all have “Manning Marable shelves” in our personal libraries, there are two generations of African-American scholars who will remember him as much for the mentor he was to us as for the research legacy he leaves.
It is still a surprisingly lonely endeavor to be an African-American academic pursuing research on black life. Despite the outward appearance of successful careers, many black social scientists, historians and humanists wage a daily battle for relevance and respect in our departments and on our campuses. The fight begins in graduate school and does not seem to abate even after we have published articles, written books, achieved tenure or garnered professional praise.
In our loneliness and struggle many of us reach out for mentors. It is relatively easy to find senior scholars who will offer encouraging words, well-rehearsed advice and general praise. But Manning managed to do so much more than that. To be a student or a junior faculty member in Manning’s office was to wait for the smile. He would listen intently and seriously as you told him about the project you envisioned, the finding you made or a conclusion you’d drawn. As you spoke, his face was a mask of stillness covering a never-resting intellect just below the surface. It was more than a little intimidating to present an idea to Manning. But if he liked what you were up to or thought you had uncovered a promising direction then his face would crack into a broad and compelling smile that made the whole nerve-wracking experience worth it. If you got the smile then you knew you could keep going.
This was only the most surface way that Manning mentored us. As a student of politics and history, he understood that young race scholars faced steep structural barriers and entrenched academic practices that no amount of well-intentioned professional cheerleading could erase. Instead of just telling us we could do it, Manning helped make “doing it” possible.
Read the Full Essay @ The Nation
Melissa Harris-Perry | April 3, 2011
We have suffered a great loss in the passing of Professor Manning Marable. As my Nation colleague John Nichols wrote yesterday [1], the coming weeks will be filled with tributes to Manning’s life and work. He was, as John says, “one of America’s truest public intellectuals.”
Manning was an unflinching and breathtakingly prolific scholar whose commitments to racial, economic, gender, and international justice were unparalleled. In decades of weekly columns, hundreds of academic journal articles and a dozen books, Manning has already written his own legacy. But despite the fact that we all have “Manning Marable shelves” in our personal libraries, there are two generations of African-American scholars who will remember him as much for the mentor he was to us as for the research legacy he leaves.
It is still a surprisingly lonely endeavor to be an African-American academic pursuing research on black life. Despite the outward appearance of successful careers, many black social scientists, historians and humanists wage a daily battle for relevance and respect in our departments and on our campuses. The fight begins in graduate school and does not seem to abate even after we have published articles, written books, achieved tenure or garnered professional praise.
In our loneliness and struggle many of us reach out for mentors. It is relatively easy to find senior scholars who will offer encouraging words, well-rehearsed advice and general praise. But Manning managed to do so much more than that. To be a student or a junior faculty member in Manning’s office was to wait for the smile. He would listen intently and seriously as you told him about the project you envisioned, the finding you made or a conclusion you’d drawn. As you spoke, his face was a mask of stillness covering a never-resting intellect just below the surface. It was more than a little intimidating to present an idea to Manning. But if he liked what you were up to or thought you had uncovered a promising direction then his face would crack into a broad and compelling smile that made the whole nerve-wracking experience worth it. If you got the smile then you knew you could keep going.
This was only the most surface way that Manning mentored us. As a student of politics and history, he understood that young race scholars faced steep structural barriers and entrenched academic practices that no amount of well-intentioned professional cheerleading could erase. Instead of just telling us we could do it, Manning helped make “doing it” possible.
Read the Full Essay @ The Nation
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