Remembering Manning Marable
The scholarly world was shocked two weeks ago by the death of Manning Marable, a mere three days before his life’s work was to finally come out. Others have done a far better job than I ever could of explaining Dr. Marable’s importance as a scholar, activist, and teacher. My hope here is to recount just a little bit of the effect he had on me as my teacher and mentor. More of these stories can be read here.
There have been a number of times in my life where I felt like a fraud. Quite frequently, I wonder if everything that feels like success in my classroom are mere surface victories, hiding more fatal failures beneath them. But never have I felt like more of a fraud than when I began my masters studies at IRAAS: the Institute for Research in African American Studies at Columbia.
There were maybe seven of us starting the program together in the Fall of 2005 when all the professors came out to greet us at our first meeting. Each was introduced in turn by Dr. Steven Gregory, the graduate student adviser. The final introduction was of the man sitting in the corner. All the other students seemed star-struck by him, and I looked forward to finding out who he was. But Dr. Gregory merely pointed to him and said, “And of course, he needs no introduction.” Too embarrassed to ask, I had to wait until I got home that night to find out that the man
