The Grooming Of a Public Intellectual

Lawrence
P. Jackson

Title: Assistant Professor of English and African American Studies, Emory University, Atlanta

Education: Ph.D., English and American
literature, Stanford University; M.A., English, Ohio State University; B.A., English and American Studies, Wesleyan University

Age: 34

Dr. Lawrence Jackson admits he has always had a "a sense of urgency" about his career, and all it takes is a glance at his CV to confirm that. His new biography, Ralph Ellison:
Emergence of Genius — surprisingly the first ever of this towering intellectual figure — is in bookstores, and it has been called "essential" reading by the novelist Charles Johnson, and "indispensable" by the noted literary critic, Dr. Lorenzo Thomas of the University of Houston-Downtown.

Only 34, Jackson, an assistant professor of English and African American studies at Emory University, also is moving along with his second book project, A Song in the Front Yard: A History of African American Writers and Critics from 1935-1960, which he's currently shopping to publishers. In addition to the books, there's also an impressive list of articles, fellowships and awards, not to mention nearly 50 conference presentations.

Asked where and how he finds the time, Jackson has a sobering answer.

"A close friend of mine, who was at Morehouse, was murdered" in Jackson's hometown of Baltimore before Jackson's senior year of college. "It was a typical thing that happens, people trying to rob you in the street."

The randomness of the crime and the popularity of Donald Bentley, the victim, made it a life-altering event not just for Jackson but for his entire peer group as well. "There were a number of us who were inspired to make a tangible commitment to making it, changing things, when Donald was murdered."

The losses multiplied when Jackson's father died just as Jackson was finishing school. And adding insult to injury, Jackson didn't get into a single doctoral program he had applied to. "That was a very, very difficult time for me personally," he admits. "Those experiences make you more serious. They can destroy you, too, I guess."