Scholar of note: young educators bring their passion and excitement for teaching, research and training to the forefront of the academy - A BIHE special focus: Emerging Academics 2004 - Cover Story

Black Issues in Higher Education, Jan 15, 2004

The road toward academic success is more often than not a rugged one, particularly for people of color, and the size of certain obstacles may sometimes seem insurmountable. But as the cadre of young scholars featured here from a wide variety of disciplines attests, there are elements of great joy intrinsic in the pursuit of scholastic enterprise. The opportunity to formulate additional perspectives that create significant paradigm shifts, to implement scientific research that propels the culture forward in its mission to eradicate deadly disease, or to reveal the complexity of a history and presence that has often been overlooked and, at best, undervalued, are some of the factors that compel these and other scholars across the country to do what they do. Academia for many proves to be a most effective pathway for the expression of personal passion, including the quest for social justice; functions as a powerful venue to right cultural wrongs; and serves as a medium through which to simply delight in the rigors of intellectual exploration.

As the exceptional scholars presented here note, in addition to their attraction to intellectual matters, the academy affords them the opportunity to teach, which some describe as their calling, their mission and their life's work. In concert with the value of their research, publications, awards, fellowships and civic service, these scholars emphasize the significance of their very presence in the academic arena. Some were the only person of color in their graduate programs and some the first person of color ever to earn tenure in their departments. Some are first-generation scholars and some the offspring of scholars and educators themselves. All of the academicians featured in Black Issues In Higher Education's third annual edition highlighting outstanding young scholars seem to appreciate that, as people of color at work in universities and colleges across the country--be they historically Black, predominantly White or any other institutional configuration--they can challenge students' perceptions in general, and inspire a new generation of scholars of African descent in particular.

Setting the Record Straight

Daina Ramey Berry

Title: Assistant Professor of History, Department of History, Michigan State University

Education: Ph.D., U.S. History, University of California, Los Angeles; M.A., Afro-American Studies, University of California, Los Angeles; B.A., History, University of California, Los Angeles

Age: 34

On a 19th-century auction block, an enslaved Black man and woman negotiate prices with potential buyers. "Look at me "the man says. "I'm worth $1,200--me and Molly." "Buy us both," the woman says, "we're a first-rate bargain."

Dr. Daina Ramey Berry explains that contrary to conventional arguments that suggest enslaved people were participants in their own commodification, those on the auction block negotiated to keep their families intact. "Potential buyers, traders, sellers and the slaves themselves discussed price and value," Berry says, "but the slaves are trying to maintain their family connections." This research, funded with a Ford Foundation Fellowship at Duke University, is part of Berry's second book project, Appraised, Bartered and Sold" Assessing the Value Human Chattel in Antebellum America.

Berry's primary goal as a scholar is to personalize the stories of the enslaved, particularly those of women, and to expand on economic studies of slavery. She is equal to the task because she was an economics major during her first three years of undergraduate study. The decision to become an historian was based on her dissatisfaction with an instructor in an African American history class.

"The language this particular scholar used when quoting slaveholders didn't settle well with me," Berry says. "There were a lot of generalizations that I had questions about; it was hard for me to believe that all slaveholders a certain way. I thought the only way I could make a difference was to become an historian and write my own books."

Those books are now works in progress. Ben-y has published widely on topics including women, gender and slavery, the subject of her dissertation and forthcoming first book, Swing the Sickle for the Harvest Is Ripe. Her research also encompasses family and community among the enslaved, sisterhood, love and marriage, and disease and death.

Berry is the recipient of several fellowships and awards and has worked as a consultant for organizations including the National Endowment of the Arts. In conjunction with another Michigan State faculty member, Berry also developed a study abroad course on music, culture and history at the University of the West Indies, Mona, in Kingston, Jamaica.

Receiving her first faculty appointment at age 28 at Arizona State University, Berry's youth has been "'a constant battle." "That was difficult because people always assume I'm a student. Age and racial discrimination have been two big obstacles for me," Berry says. In graduate school, Berry, the only Black scholar in her field, often found her colleagues" perceptions about people of color a significant challenge, but she says becoming a historian was her best decision. "I can't imagine doing anything else," she says. "I know I was brought here to be a historian."