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William Manning Marable (May 13, 1950 – April 1, 2011) was an American professor of public policy, history and African-American Studies at Columbia University. He founded and directed the Institute for Research in African-American Studies. He wrote several texts and was active in numerous progressivism political causes.
At the time of his death, Marable had completed a biography of human rights activist Malcolm X, titled (2011). He was posthumously awarded the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for History for this work.
Marable received his Bachelor of Arts degree from Earlham College (1971) and went on to earn his master's degree (1972) and Ph.D. (1976) in history, at the University of Wisconsin, and University of Maryland. Marable served on the faculty of Smith College, Tuskegee Institute, University of San Francisco, Cornell University, Fisk University, served as the founding director of the Africana and Hispanic Studies Program at Colgate University, Purdue University, Ohio State University, and University of Colorado at Boulder, where he was chairman of the Department of Black Studies. He was recruited in 1993 by Columbia University professor Eric Foner to be the founding director of Columbia's Institute for Research in African-American Studies, and was later appointed as the M. Moran Weston and Black Alumni Council Professor of African-American Studies and professor of history and public affairs.
In 1979, Marable joined the New American Movement (NAM), an organization of veterans of the New Left who were trying to build a successor to Students for a Democratic Society. In 1982, NAM merged with Michael Harrington’s Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee to form the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), and Marable was elected as one of the new organization’s vice chairs. He left the DSA in 1985 after Michael Harrington and his allies, following the lead of much of the mainstream union leadership, refused to back Jesse Jackson’s insurgent campaign in 1984. Marable later joined the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism.
Marable served as Chair of Movement for a Democratic Society (MDS). Marable served on the Board of Directors for the Hip-Hop Summit Action Network (HSAN), a non-profit coalition of public figures working to utilize hip-hop as an agent for social change. Hip-Hop Summit Action Network Board of Directors. Marable was also a member of the New York Legislature's Amistad Commission, created to review state curriculum regarding the slave trade.
Marable was a critic of Afrocentrism. He wrote:Manning Marable, Beyond Black and White: Transforming African American Politics, p. 192.
It was reported in June 2004 by activist group Racism Watch that Marable had called for immediate action to be taken to end the U.S. military's use of Raphael Patai's book The Arab Mind, which Marable described as "a book full of racially charged stereotypes and generalizations."Glick, Ted. 2004 Racism Watch Calls for Action to End Use of Anti-Arab Books by the U.S. Government. via PCDC (June 2, 2004). In a 2008 column, Marable endorsed Senator Barack Obama's bid for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination.
Marable, who was diagnosed with sarcoidosis, underwent a double lung transplant as treatment in mid-2010. Marable died of complications from pneumonia on April 1, 2011, in New York City at the age of 60.
Critics of the biography contend that the focus on Marable's discussion of Malcolm's potential same-sex relationships, about three sentences long in a 592-page book, overlooks more important political statements Marable makes about Malcolm's underlying lifelong commitment to revolutionary Pan Africanism.
Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention was nominated for the National Book Award, and The New York Times ranked it among the 10 Best Books of 2011. It was one of three nominees for the inaugural Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction (2012) presented by the American Library Association for the best adult non-fiction. It was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for History in 2012.
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Categories: 1950 Births, 2011 Deaths, 20th-century American Historians, 21st-century American Historians, 21st-century American Male Writers, Academics From Ohio, African-american Historians, African-american Social Scientists, American Male Non-fiction Writers, American Marxist Historians, American Political Scientists, American Political Writers, American Social Sciences Writers, Black Studies Scholars, Columbia University Faculty, Critics Of Afrocentrism, Deaths From Pneumonia In New York, Earlham College Alumni, Historians From New York, Historians From Ohio, Historians Of African Americans, Lung Transplant Recipients, Members Of The Democratic Socialists Of America From Ohio, Educators From Dayton, Ohio, Pulitzer Prize For History Winners, University Of Maryland, College Park Alumni, Writers From Dayton, Ohio, Writers From New York City
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