David A. Varel. The Scholar and the Struggle: Lawrence Reddick’s Crusade for Black History and Black Power.

Abstract

Born in Jacksonville, Florida, the son of a Pullman porter and a housewife, Lawrence D. Reddick (1910–1995) became an important historian, archivist, librarian, and activist who played key roles in promoting African American history and pursuing civil rights. In this well-written and meticulously researched first biography of Reddick, David Varel argues that as an advisor and mentor to Martin Luther King, Jr., “Reddick shaped the policy decisions of the [civil rights] movement’s highest leadership” (8). Varel also demonstrates that “Reddick’s lifelong crusade for black history—for a useable past—was the centerpiece of his larger struggle for black empowerment” (12). Reddick’s path in life was set at Fisk University, where he earned BA and MA degrees, studying under such prominent Black intellectuals as Lorenzo Turner, Horace Mann Bond, Charles S. Johnson, and Arturo Schomburg. During the 1930s, Reddick taught history at Kentucky State Industrial College and Dillard University, serving as Department of History chair, and earned a PhD in history at the University of Chicago. He was the first African American to publish in the Journal of Southern History, contributing a book review in 1940. Not until 1955 did the journal accept an article published by a Black scholar (Elsie Lewis).