Russell J. Rickford

Russell John Rickford (born c. 1975) is an American scholar and author. An associate professor in the History Department at Cornell University, he has written the only in-depth biography on Betty Shabazz. Rickford is an expert on the black radical tradition and on black liberal culture after World War II, and lectures on American social and political history, among other subjects.[1]

Early life

Born in Guyana, Rickford grew up in Palo Alto, California.[2] His mother, Angela E. Rickford, is a professor of Special Education at San Jose State University[3] and the author of I Can Fly: Teaching Narratives and Reading Comprehension to African Americans and other Ethnic Minority Students.[4] His father, John R. Rickford, an authority on African-American Vernacular English and the author of numerous books and scholarly articles, teaches linguistics at Stanford University.[2] Russell Rickford attended Gunn High School in Palo Alto and won a National Merit Scholarship.[2][5]

He went on to study journalism at Howard University, where he also served as Alpha Phi Alpha president for two years and wrote for The Hilltop.[6] Rickford earned his bachelor's degree magna cum laude in 1997.[2][6]

Career

Rickford started out as a reporter for The Philadelphia Inquirer[7] and went on to work for a public-relations firm in Philadelphia. In 1998, he began doing research for his biography on Betty Shabazz.[8] In 2000, Rickford and his father co-wrote Spoken Soul: The Story of Black English, a book about African-American Vernacular English[9] which won the American Book Award.[10] The term "Spoken Soul" was coined by author Claude Brown in the 1960s and pays homage to the rhythmic, poetic qualities of African-American English.[11]

In 2001,[8] Rickford left his job in Philadelphia and moved into his parents' garage to write the first, and to date only, in-depth biography of Betty Shabazz.[5] An effort that spanned five and a half years, Betty Shabazz: A Remarkable Story of Survival and Faith Before and After Malcolm X was published in 2003.[8] Writing in The Crisis, William Jelani Cobb called Rickford's work "a thorough, insightful and engaging book, befitting its enigmatic—and ultimately heroic—subject".[7]

In 2002, Rickford enrolled at Columbia University, studying for a master's degree in African-American studies under Manning Marable.[12][13] Between 2003 and 2004, he contributed research to Marable's Malcolm X Project and, according to Marable, "was instrumental in setting up many oral histories and interviews" with Malcolm X's contemporaries.[14] Marable credited Rickford with coining the term "Malcolmology" to describe the way in which African Americans rediscovered Malcolm X as a cultural icon after he was embraced by major hip-hop artists of the 1980s and 1990s.[15] Rickford completed his doctorate in history at Columbia in 2009.[13] His dissertation won that year's Bancroft Dissertation Award. His research concerns African-American politics after the Civil Rights Movement. In an interview, he said he was trying to answer the question, "Why did black nationalism become increasingly conservative towards the end of the 20th century?"[16]

Rickford joined the Dartmouth faculty in 2009,[16] moving to Cornell in 2014. In early 2011, he edited a collection of writings by Marable entitled Beyond Boundaries.[17] Described by his former mentor as "one of the most talented and insightful" members of a new generation of black intellectuals,[18] In 2016, Rickford completed a history of Pan-Africanist private schools during the Black Power era titled We Are an African People: Independent Education, Black Power, and the Radical Imagination.[1] Presently he teaches undergraduate seminars and supervises graduate reading at Cornell.[1]

Personal life

Rickford is married to Adrienne Clay, who was introduced to him by Manning Marable[12] when they were both working as research assistants for Marable's Malcolm X Project.[19]

Works
  • Rickford, John R.; Rickford, Russell J. (2000). Spoken Soul: The Story of Black English. New York: John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 978-0-471-32356-3.
  • Rickford, Russell J. (2003). Betty Shabazz: A Remarkable Story of Survival and Faith Before and After Malcolm X. Naperville, Ill.: Sourcebooks. ISBN 978-1-4022-0171-4.
  • Rickford, Russell J., ed. (2011). Beyond Boundaries: The Manning Marable Reader. Herndon, Va.: Paradigm. ISBN 978-1-59451-861-4.
  • Rickford, Russell J. (2016). We Are an African People: Independent Education, Black Power, and the Radical Imagination. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-986147-7.
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References
  1. "Russell Rickford". Cornell University. Retrieved June 20, 2018.
  2. Nakao, Annie (February 22, 2004). "Pride and prejudice / A young author looks back at the tragedy -- and triumph -- of Betty Shabazz's life". San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved June 20, 2018.
  3. "San Jose State University Directory". San Jose State University. Retrieved June 20, 2018.
  4. "Bio. Angela E. Rickford" (PDF). Hong Kong Baptist University. November 2011. Retrieved November 26, 2011.
  5. Eymer, Rick (February 6, 2004). "More than a widow". Palo Alto Weekly. Retrieved November 14, 2011.
  6. Rickford, John Russell (January 22, 2000). "Why Spoken Soul means more to me than any book I've written". AALBC.com. Retrieved November 26, 2011.
  7. Cobb, William Jelani (March–April 2004). "Betty Shabazz: Uncovering the Woman Behind the Widow Veil". The Crisis. p. 52. Retrieved November 26, 2016.
  8. Trotz, Maya (January 2004). "Russell Rickford". Jouvay.com. Retrieved November 14, 2011.
  9. Wagner, Venise (April 30, 2000). "Father and son authors make case for acceptance of Ebonics". The San Francisco Examiner. Retrieved November 26, 2011.
  10. American Booksellers Association (2013). "The American Book Awards / Before Columbus Foundation [1980–2012]". BookWeb. Archived from the original on March 13, 2013. Retrieved September 25, 2013. 2000 [...] Spoken Soul: The Story of Black English, John Russell Rickford and Russell John Rickford
  11. John R. Rickford; Russell John Rickford (2000). Spoken Soul: The Story of Black English. John Wiley and Sons. p. ix. ISBN 978-0-471-32356-3. Retrieved November 26, 2011.
  12. Rickford, Russell (April 4, 2011). "A Eulogy for Manning Marable". The Root. Retrieved April 29, 2018.
  13. "What Matters to Me and Why?". Dartmouth College. January 18, 2011. Archived from the original on 2012-01-21. Retrieved November 26, 2011.
  14. Manning Marable (April 4, 2011). Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention. Penguin Books Ltd. p. 492. ISBN 978-0-7139-9895-5. Retrieved November 26, 2011.
  15. Marable, Manning (Winter 2005). "Rediscovering Malcolm X's Life: A Historian's Adventures in Living History" (PDF). Souls. pp. 24–29. Retrieved November 26, 2011.
  16. Baum, Ann (November 10, 2009). "Despite cuts new profs. join College faculty". The Dartmouth. Retrieved June 20, 2018.
  17. Watson, Jamal Eric (April 5, 2011). "Manning Marable Remembered as Public Intellectual and Activist". Diverse Issues in Higher Education. Retrieved November 14, 2011.
  18. Manning Marable; Russell Rickford (editor) (April 30, 2011). Beyond Boundaries: The Manning Marable Reader. Paradigm Publishers. p. vii. ISBN 978-1-59451-861-4. Retrieved November 26, 2011.CS1 maint: extra text: authors list (link)
  19. The Malcolm X Project. "About the MXP. Staff". Institute for Research in African-American Studies, Columbia University. Retrieved November 26, 2011.
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