Russell J. Rickford
Encyclopedia
Russell John Rickford is an American
scholar
and author
. An assistant professor in the History Department at Dartmouth College
, 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.
, Rickford grew up in Palo Alto, California
. His mother, Angela E. Rickford, is a professor of Special Education
at San Jose State University
and the author of I Can Fly: Teaching Narratives and Reading Comprehension to African Americans and other Ethnic Minority Students. 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
. Russell Rickford attended Gunn High School
in Palo Alto and won a National Merit Scholarship.
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
. Rickford earned his bachelor's degree
magna cum laude in 1997.
and went on to work for a public-relations firm in Philadelphia. In 1998, he began doing research for his biography on Betty Shabazz.
In 2000, Rickford and his father co-wrote Spoken Soul: The Story of Black English, a book about African-American Vernacular English which won the American Book Award
. 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.
In 2001, 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
. 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. Writing in The Crisis
, William Jelani Cobb
called Rickford’s work "a thorough, insightful and engaging book, befitting its enigmatic—and ultimately heroic—subject."
In 2002, Rickford enrolled at Columbia University
, studying for a master’s degree in African-American Studies under Manning Marable
. 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. 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. Rickford completed his doctorate at Columbia in 2009. His research concerned 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?"
Rickford joined the Dartmouth
faculty in 2009. In early 2011, he edited a collection of writings by Marable titled Beyond Boundaries. Described by his former mentor as "one of the most talented and insightful" members of a new generation of black intellectuals, Russell Rickford is currently working on an intellectual history of pan-Africanist
private schools during the Black Power
era provisionally titled A Struggle in the Arena of Ideas: Black independent Schools and the Quest for Nationhood, 1966-1980.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
scholar
Scholarly method
Scholarly method or scholarship is the body of principles and practices used by scholars to make their claims about the world as valid and trustworthy as possible, and to make them known to the scholarly public.-Methods:...
and author
Author
An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...
. An assistant professor in the History Department at Dartmouth College
Dartmouth College
Dartmouth College is a private, Ivy League university in Hanover, New Hampshire, United States. The institution comprises a liberal arts college, Dartmouth Medical School, Thayer School of Engineering, and the Tuck School of Business, as well as 19 graduate programs in the arts and sciences...
, he has written the only in-depth biography on Betty Shabazz
Betty Shabazz
Betty Shabazz , born Betty Dean Sanders and also known as Betty X, was an American educator and civil rights advocate. She was the wife of Malcolm X....
. 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.
Early life
Born in GuyanaGuyana
Guyana , officially the Co-operative Republic of Guyana, previously the colony of British Guiana, is a sovereign state on the northern coast of South America that is culturally part of the Anglophone Caribbean. Guyana was a former colony of the Dutch and of the British...
, Rickford grew up in Palo Alto, California
Palo Alto, California
Palo Alto is a California charter city located in the northwest corner of Santa Clara County, in the San Francisco Bay Area of California, United States. The city shares its borders with East Palo Alto, Mountain View, Los Altos, Los Altos Hills, Stanford, Portola Valley, and Menlo Park. It is...
. His mother, Angela E. Rickford, is a professor of Special Education
Special education
Special education is the education of students with special needs in a way that addresses the students' individual differences and needs. Ideally, this process involves the individually planned and systematically monitored arrangement of teaching procedures, adapted equipment and materials,...
at San Jose State University
San José State University
San Jose State University is a public university located in San Jose, California, United States...
and the author of I Can Fly: Teaching Narratives and Reading Comprehension to African Americans and other Ethnic Minority Students. His father, John R. Rickford
John R. Rickford
John Russell Rickford is an American academic and author. His book Spoken Soul: The Story of Black English, which he wrote together with his son, Russell J. Rickford, won the American Book Award in 2000. Rickford is the J.E...
, an authority on African American Vernacular English
African American Vernacular English
African American Vernacular English —also called African American English; less precisely Black English, Black Vernacular, Black English Vernacular , or Black Vernacular English —is an African American variety of American English...
and the author of numerous books and scholarly articles, teaches linguistics
Linguistics
Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. Linguistics can be broadly broken into three categories or subfields of study: language form, language meaning, and language in context....
at Stanford University
Stanford University
The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...
. Russell Rickford attended Gunn High School
Gunn High School
Henry M. Gunn High School is one of two public high schools in Palo Alto, California. Gunn High School is a four-year high school with a current enrollment of just over 1,900 students. The Class of 1966 was the first class to graduate from Gunn High School. The academic year has two semesters with...
in Palo Alto and won a National Merit Scholarship.
He went on to study journalism
Journalism
Journalism is the practice of investigation and reporting of events, issues and trends to a broad audience in a timely fashion. Though there are many variations of journalism, the ideal is to inform the intended audience. Along with covering organizations and institutions such as government and...
at Howard University
Howard University
Howard University is a federally chartered, non-profit, private, coeducational, nonsectarian, historically black university located in Washington, D.C., United States...
, where he also served as Alpha Phi Alpha
Alpha Phi Alpha
Alpha Phi Alpha is the first Inter-Collegiate Black Greek Letter fraternity. It was founded on December 4, 1906 at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. Its founders are known as the "Seven Jewels". Alpha Phi Alpha developed a model that was used by the many Black Greek Letter Organizations ...
president for two years and wrote for The Hilltop
The Hilltop (newspaper)
The Hilltop is the student newspaper of Howard University, a historically Black college, located in Washington, D.C. Co-founded in 1924 by Harlem Renaissance writer Zora Neale Hurston and Louis Eugene King, the Hilltop is the first and only daily newspaper at a historically Black college or...
. Rickford earned his bachelor's degree
Bachelor's degree
A bachelor's degree is usually an academic degree awarded for an undergraduate course or major that generally lasts for three or four years, but can range anywhere from two to six years depending on the region of the world...
magna cum laude in 1997.
Career
Rickford started out as a reporter for The Philadelphia InquirerThe Philadelphia Inquirer
The Philadelphia Inquirer is a morning daily newspaper that serves the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, metropolitan area of the United States. The newspaper was founded by John R. Walker and John Norvell in June 1829 as The Pennsylvania Inquirer and is the third-oldest surviving daily newspaper in the...
and went on to work for a public-relations firm in Philadelphia. In 1998, he began doing research for his biography on Betty Shabazz.
In 2000, Rickford and his father co-wrote Spoken Soul: The Story of Black English, a book about African-American Vernacular English which won the American Book Award
American Book Award
The American Book Award was established in 1978 by the Before Columbus Foundation. It seeks to recognize outstanding literary achievement by contemporary American authors, without restriction to race, sex, ethnic background, or genre...
. The term "Spoken Soul" was coined by author Claude Brown
Claude Brown
Claude Brown is the author ofManchild in the Promised Land, published to critical acclaim in 1965, which tells the story of his coming of age during the 1940s and 1950s in Harlem...
in the 1960s and pays homage to the rhythmic, poetic qualities of African-American English.
In 2001, Rickford left his job in Philadelphia and moved into his parents' garage
Garage (house)
A residential garage is part of a home, or an associated building, designed or used for storing a vehicle or vehicles. In some places the term is used synonymously with "carport", though that term normally describes a structure that is not completely enclosed.- British residential garages:Those...
to write the first, and to date only, in-depth biography of Betty Shabazz
Betty Shabazz
Betty Shabazz , born Betty Dean Sanders and also known as Betty X, was an American educator and civil rights advocate. She was the wife of Malcolm X....
. 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. Writing in The Crisis
The Crisis
The Crisis is the official magazine of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People , and was founded in 1910 by W. E. B. Du Bois , Oswald Garrison Villard, J. Max Barber, Charles Edward Russell, Kelly Miller, W.S. Braithwaite, M. D. Maclean.The original title of the journal was...
, William Jelani Cobb
William Jelani Cobb
William Jelani Cobb Ph.D. is an American author and educator, associate Professor of History and Africana Studies at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey.-Life:...
called Rickford’s work "a thorough, insightful and engaging book, befitting its enigmatic—and ultimately heroic—subject."
In 2002, Rickford enrolled at Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
, studying for a master’s degree in African-American Studies under Manning Marable
Manning Marable
William Manning Marable was an American professor of public affairs, history and African-American Studies at Columbia University. Marable founded and directed the Institute for Research in African-American Studies. Marable authored several texts and was active in progressive political causes...
. Between 2003 and 2004, he contributed research to Marable’s Malcolm X
Malcolm X
Malcolm X , born Malcolm Little and also known as El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz , was an African American Muslim minister and human rights activist. To his admirers he was a courageous advocate for the rights of African Americans, a man who indicted white America in the harshest terms for its...
Project and, according to Marable, "was instrumental in setting up many oral histories and interviews" with Malcolm X’s contemporaries. 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. Rickford completed his doctorate at Columbia in 2009. His research concerned 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?"
Rickford joined the Dartmouth
Dartmouth College
Dartmouth College is a private, Ivy League university in Hanover, New Hampshire, United States. The institution comprises a liberal arts college, Dartmouth Medical School, Thayer School of Engineering, and the Tuck School of Business, as well as 19 graduate programs in the arts and sciences...
faculty in 2009. In early 2011, he edited a collection of writings by Marable titled Beyond Boundaries. Described by his former mentor as "one of the most talented and insightful" members of a new generation of black intellectuals, Russell Rickford is currently working on an intellectual history of pan-Africanist
Pan-Africanism
Pan-Africanism is a movement that seeks to unify African people or people living in Africa, into a "one African community". Differing types of Pan-Africanism seek different levels of economic, racial, social, or political unity...
private schools during the Black Power
Black Power
Black Power is a political slogan and a name for various associated ideologies. It is used in the movement among people of Black African descent throughout the world, though primarily by African Americans in the United States...
era provisionally titled A Struggle in the Arena of Ideas: Black independent Schools and the Quest for Nationhood, 1966-1980.
Personal Life
Rickford is married to Adrienne Clay, who was introduced to him by Manning Marable when they were both working as research assistants for Marable’s Malcolm X Project.External links
- Russell Rickford faculty page, Dartmouth College