Dr. Kelly Harris, Professor – Chicago State University
Dr. Kelly Harris,
Asst Prof and Coordinator African American
Studies – Chicago State University and
Chair of the Chicago Council on Black Studies
Kelly Harris is an assistant professor and coordinator of African American Studies at Chicago State University and Director of the Talented Tenth Leadership Program.
Dr. Harris formerly was the Director of International Studies at Johnson C. Smith University. His areas of concentration include African American politics, African politics, Black political thought, and the history of social science.
His most recent publication is “Manning Marable: Humanizing Malcolm or Denigrating Legacies,” which appears in By Any Means Necessary Malcolm X: Real, Not Reinvented by Herb Boyd, Ron Daniels, Maulana Karenga, and Haki Madhubuti. Dr. Harris is a graduate of Temple University (B.A.), Ohio State University (M.A.), and Clark Atlanta University (PhD.).
Dr. Harris was born and raised in Philadelphia, Pa and has a wife and three children.
Faulty activist-freedom fighters like Jesse Jackson, having made such a bogus statement denigrates his own self as an African -American. He should continue to be reborn until he comes sheds his skin from the Europeanization of human consciousness and culture. Frantz Fanon has already warned us
the” we must validate each generation of the African American struggle for equality and justice___or each generation will betray it.” Jesse Jackson is such a person who betrays the activist- intellectual struggle that we have died for. He should be looking back (sankofa) towards the greatness and the resilience that is found in Black people. He should be trying to build up Chicago state University instead of diminishing its value as a historical Black University. I was a student who sat at the feet of Dr. Kelly Harris. He is one of the most humble scholars whom I’ve ever met. He exudes in the greatness that is Africana.
I think Jessie Jackson has lost his mind, if indeed he ever had one. Studying African-American studies is the primal studies that every student should study, if they want to be articulate and aware students concerning their core identity. By core identity, I mean most current African- American students have been knocked off their center due to the progressive Europeanization of African consciousness and the cultural memories of our
great heritage. Jessie Jackson has never been a scholar and I am not taken aback that he would go so far as to oppose the activist-intellectual tradition of the African-American struggle. Scholars such as W.E.B.Dubois and Mary Cloud Bethune gave their whole lives studying the essentials of afrocentric and historical studies of African peoples, only to give it back to the people and by this knowledge available and within the reach of the common people(Karenga, M).
I grew up with kelly he was my next door neighbor, I am very proud of what he has become and his achievments a great young man and more to come, keep on the look out, Johnnie Wiggins