Elizabeth Alexander Receives Alphonse Fletcher, Sr. Fellowship

April 15, 2005—Elizabeth Alexander received an Alphonse Fletcher, Sr. Fellowship. Announced by Alphonse Fletcher, Jr., Chairman and CEO of Fletcher Asset Management, Inc., the Fletcher Fellows include individuals who will receive a stipend of $50,000 for work that contributes to improving race relations in American society and furthers the broad social goals of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education decision of 1954.

The Fletcher Fellows and their projects are:

• Elizabeth Alexander, Associate Professor (Adjunct) of African-American Studies, Yale University, “‘Into a Light Both Brilliant and Unseen’: Post-Civil Rights African-American Poetry and Poetics”
• Kathleen Cleaver, Senior Lecturer in African American Studies, Yale University, “Memories of Love and War”(memoir)
• Devon Carbado, Professor of Law and African American Studies, UCLA, “Working Identity,” a legal theoretical examination of the legacy of Brown in the workplace
• Stanley Crouch, critic and writer, new essays and fiction on American racial culture
• Roland Fryer, Society of Fellows, Harvard University, research related to affirmative action, discrimination, and social economics
• Anita Hill, Professor of Law, Social Policy, and Women’s Studies, Brandeis
University, “Ending Educational Disparities: A Comprehensive Index for Evaluating Educational Success”
• Nina Jablonski, Irvine Chair and Curator of Anthropology, California Academy of Sciences, “Improving the Public Understanding of the Biological and Social Meaning of Skin Color”
• Glenn Ligon, painter/visual artist, “The Shadow,” a major painting cycle and video project based on the Hans Christian Andersen story
• Arthur Mitchell, Co-Founder and Artistic Director, Dance Theatre of Harlem, two projects: autobiographical document, and the formation of an accredited conservatory in partnership with the Manhattan School of Music, the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, and School of Visual Arts
• Robert P. Moses, Founder, The Algebra Project, Cambridge, Massachusetts, “Quality Public School Education as a Civil Right (QECR)”
• Thomas Sugrue, Edmund J. and Louise W. Kahn Professor of History and Sociology, University of Pennsylvania, “Sweet Land of Liberty: The Unfinished Struggle for Racial Equality in the North, 1935-present”
• Deborah Willis, University Professor, Tisch School of the Arts, New York University, “Reflections in Black: Black Photographers 1840 to the Present: A Documentary”

The Selection Committee was chaired by Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr., W. E. B. Du Bois Professor of the Humanities at Harvard University. The committee’s other members were Professor K. Anthony Appiah, Laurance Rockefeller University Professor of Philosophy, Princeton University; Dr. James P. Comer, Maurice Falk Professor of Child Psychiatry at the Yale University School of Medicine's Child Study Center and Founder of the School Development Program; Thelma Golden, Deputy Director for Exhibitions and Programs, Studio Museum in Harlem; and Dr. Amy Gutmann, President of the University of Pennsylvania.

Professor Gates said, “Through a variety of approaches, the Fletcher Fellows will help us understand the important changes ushered in by Brown and also the work that still needs to be done to fulfill the goal of equal access to opportunities and the resources of this rich society.” He added, “Some of the recipients use their work to address directly the legacy—both the successes and failures—of Brown, while other recipients address that legacy indirectly, in their own educational and career paths to fulfill the goal of equal access to the tremendous opportunities and extraordinarily rich resources of contemporary American society.”