How Dwight McBride Unknowingly Lifted A Young Scholar

I attended the Modern Language Association (MLA) conference in my first or second year as a professor at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, so around 2003 or 2004. While browsing the book exhibit, I spotted a well-known scholar in African American literary studies. 

I rushed over and began telling her how much I admired her work and how much I had learned from it when she interrupted me: “Have you published a book?” “No,” I said. “Oh, I thought you were someone else,” she replied, and the conversation ended there.

I won’t lie; I was hurt and embarrassed. To tell a further truth, I remember thinking that the interaction confirmed some of the critiques I had been hearing about elitism in academic spaces. I began to leave the exhibit hall, feeling, you know, defeated. 

Before I could exit, another well-known scholar walked by. Not wanting a repeat of what had just happened, I kept my head down and tried to move along. But he saw me, smiled, said hello, extended his hand, and introduced himself: “I’m Dwight McBride.” Of course, I already knew who he was. If you were paying even modest attention to African American studies at that moment, you knew that Dwight McBride was a leading force in literary and cultural studies.

And there he was, speaking to me as if we were colleagues. One of us was major--established and widely recognized, and the other was minor--just getting started, but that was not how he approached the interaction. In retrospect, what may have seemed like a small gesture was actually a powerful act of affirmation.

Fast forward to December 2024, almost exactly twenty years after that MLA encounter. I attended the first meeting of a new Race & Ethnicity Study Group here in St. Louis. When I walked in, the host was speaking with a group of attendees, and as soon as he finished, he acknowledged me, smiled, extended his hand, and (once again) introduced himself: “I’m Dwight McBride.”