Gerald Early, Merle Kling Professor of Modern Letters at Washington University in St. Louis, at Holmes Lounge for the December 10 installation ceremony of Dwight A. McBride as the Gerald Early Distinguished Professor of African & African American Studies in Arts & Sciences. (Photo by John Griswold)
It was a good day for The Common Reader on December 10, 2024, when the inaugural Gerald Early Distinguished Professor in Arts & Sciences, Dwight McBride, was installed in a ceremony on campus at Washington University in St. Louis.
Chancellor Martin called the ceremony “a profound testament to friendship, scholarship, and the enduring impact of extraordinary individuals. The Gerald Early Distinguished Professorship represents more than an academic honor. It commemorates the legacies of two remarkable men who have been integral to Washington University: Chancellor Emeritus William H. Danforth and Professor Gerald Early…one of the most significant scholars of our time.”
Their friendship, Martin said, was itself a remarkable testament to mutual respect and shared values. And, “by establishing this professorship, Bill Danforth ensured that Gerald’s legacy of intellectual curiosity, moral courage, and deep, humanistic understanding will continue to inspire generations of scholars to come.”
Dr. Early is TCR’s founding Executive Editor and the Merle Kling Professor of Modern Letters in the Department of African and African-American Studies. Previously he served as interim director of the Center for the Study of Race, Ethnicity, & Equity, and Director of the Center for the Humanities and the American Cultural Studies program. He is an elected fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a member of the American Philosophical Society.
He began his remarks by explaining that there is an oil portrait of himself hanging in the university library. “I try not to go on the floor where it is,” he said to laughter.
One day a young man was coming out of the library and saw Dr. Early walking in.
“He looked at me, and he said, ‘You’re alive!’” Dr. Early laughed. “’I saw your portrait; I thought they were only dead people!’”
“I’ve been told that getting something like this [named-chair installation] is also usually something that happens if you’re not alive,” he said. The professorship had not been put to use yet, and “in some ways I didn’t know if the chair was for real,” Dr. Early said. “I was so, so pleased—one, that the chair was real, but the other was that someone of Dr. McBride’s stature was coming here.”
“I can’t tell you how pleased I am with this, that it turned out so well, and that he’s here and that I’m alive for it,” Dr. Early said. He bowed and left the podium to applause and whoops from family, friends, and colleagues.
Dr. McBride joined the WashU faculty in 2023 and holds appointments in African and African-American Studies and the Department of English. He is co-founder and editor of James Baldwin Review, and a founding co-editor of The New Black Studies Series at University of Illinois Press. He served as president of The New School in NYC and has been faculty and an administrator at Emory, Northwestern, University of Illinois at Chicago, and Pitt.
Dr. McBride thanked those present and said, “I’m both humbled and deeply grateful for this honor. It’s even more meaningful to be installed in a professorship bearing the name of my beloved colleague Dr. Gerald Early. …I commit to doing my level best to live up to the example set by the namesake of this incredible honor.”
His speech that followed was titled, “Black Letters & Black Leadership, or ‘What I Have Shaped into a Kind of Life.’” Watch it in its entirety here.
