Spotlight Scholar: Afro-American Studies Professor John Bracey
Few scholars can boast the academic pedigree of Afro-American Studies professor and chair John Bracey. His family comprises four generations of teachers. Bracey’s grandparents were teachers and his mother taught at Howard University. His sons teach, as does his wife, sister, aunt and several cousins. “I have two uncles who were college presidents. In my family, if you don’t teach we forgive you,” chuckles Bracey. Growing up on Howard’s campus in the 1940s and early 1950s, Bracey was surrounded by a body of the leading black intellectuals of the 20th century – John Hope Franklin, Sterling Allen Brown, E Franklin Frazer, Dorothy B. Porter and others. He has autographed first edition books from these scholars that were given to him as a child. “They tolerated me. They were very brilliant people so I learned from them,” says Bracey.
This background, as well as a genuine love for teaching, led Bracey on his way to becoming a pre-eminent scholar of black history and the black arts movement in which he was both a witness and a participant. He wanted to be involved in this area of scholarship, he says, because “this is where the field was going. I was convinced the most important scholarship would be the role of black people in general and black women in particular. I think that’s been correct.”