RIP Manning Marable

Manning Marable, one of the top scholars in African-American Studies, passed away April 1st.

Dr. Marable was one of the major influences on me as I developed my understanding of socialism. I can't say I read all his books, but I read three of them (Race, Reform and Rebellion (1991); Black Leadership (1998); one more, published sometime in the early 1990s?? I can't remember the name) and a lengthy pamphlet. I think I started at the University of Colorado at Boulder months or at most a year after he stopped teaching there, which was a bummer.

At one point, I had a sort of stupid idea, of putting together a collection of political essays, and I wrote to Dr. Marable asking him to contribute. Unsurprisingly, he declined (I didn't have any kind of reputation or a B.A., I just came out of nowhere) but he read one of the essays I had sent him and wrote me back saying he liked it. (it was very cool of him to write me back). The paper he commented on had a fair amount of stuff about Ireland in it, and I would be very surprised if he hadn't been mildly interested in the North and supportive of republicanism.

Anyway, politically he had a major affect on me.

There are, of course, many lyrics I could alter into a poem about Dr. Marable. For some weird reason i can't figure out, I'm not sure I'll do that.
UPDATE 6/29/11 Although I have not written a poem about him, I briefly refer to him in the second poem here.

Tom Shelley

There is some good information about him here and here.