Russell J. Rickford

Russell John Rickford (born ) is an American scholar and activist who is an associate professor in the History Department at Cornell University. He has written the only in-depth biography on Betty Shabazz, the wife of Malcolm X.

Rickford's research focuses on the black radical tradition and on black liberal culture after World War II. He lectures on American social and political history, among other subjects.

Early life and education Born in Guyana, Rickford grew up in Palo Alto, California. 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.

He went on to study journalism at Howard University in Washington, D.C., 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.

Early works 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, 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 in history at Columbia in 2009.

Rickford joined the Dartmouth faculty in 2009, Described by his former mentor as "one of the most talented and insightful" members of a new generation of black intellectuals, 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. where according to The Telegraph, he referred to the massacre of more than 1,400 Israelis on Oct 7 by the terrorist group as a "challenge to the monopoly of violence." He also said "It was exhilarating". Cornell officials condemned his remarks. Rickford took a leave of absence, resuming teaching the following year.

Personal life Rickford was introduced to his wife by Manning Marable

Works