-
Acknowledgments
- Ohio University Press
- Chapter
- Additional Information
Acknowledgments It is America’s independents, and black independents in particular, to whom I am most in debt for making this project relevant. Eric Foner, who served as my doctoral thesis adviser at Columbia University, is the person to whom I am most in debt as a scholar. He and Manning Marable, also from Columbia University, have been generous advisers, in addition to being gifted teachers. Eric was gracious to write the foreword to this book. Phyllis Goldberg taught me how to write. Without her, these words would probably never have been written, as she gave me one piece of unconventional advice some fifteen years ago when we worked on a weekly newspaper covering independent politics: “Write as you speak.” This simple lesson was designed to free me of my arresting fear of simply putting words to the pad, or the screen, as it were. Thank you Phyllis, for that, and for our many conversations over the years. There are a number of others whom I would like to thank for taking their valuable time to o¤er critical comments on all or parts of the manuscript: Hanes Walton Jr., of the University of Michigan; Paul Finkelman, of Albany Law School; Cary D. Wintz, of Texas Southern University; Devin Fergus, of Vanderbilt University; and most especially Jacqueline Salit, the executive editor of the Neo-Independent. Cathy Stewart and David Belmont, of New York’s Independence Party, Nancy Ross, John Opdycke, and Sarah Lyons, of the Committee for a Unified Independent Party, and Richard Winger, of Ballot Access News, provided key stats and facts in the most timely way. Funding for this project was provided, in part, through a grant from the Institute for Southern Studies at the University of South Carolina and a faculty fellowship from the Office of University Research Services at Towson University , Maryland. I wrote the first three chapters of the book overseas, while on a Fulbright, and completed another chapter at Harvard University while conducting research on abolitionism in the Atlantic World. You are reading copyrighted material published by Ohio University Press/Swallow Press. Unauthorized posting, copying, or distributing of this work except as permitted under U.S. copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. At Towson University, I have benefited from research assistance from two graduate students, Ranyatta Casey and Matthew Leibensperger, and comments by recent graduate Leah Worthington. Towson University reference librarian Shana Gass was particularly helpful, as was Fann Montague, librarian at the Richard H. Thornton Library in Oxford, North Carolina. My department chairman at Towson, Robert Rook, and department secretary, Emily Daugherty , have been ever accommodating and supportive. Sonny Gibson and Blake Wintory, local historians from Kansas City and Little Rock, kindly shared documents on independent black politics from their respective areas with me, as did Anthony Adam, of Prairie View A&M University, and Gerald Gaither, with regards to the chapter on Black Populism. I owe a very special debt of gratitude to Gillian Berchowitz, my always encouraging editor at Ohio University Press, who invited me to submit a manuscript in the first place. Paul Finkelman, for whom I wrote an essay on black politics for a reference series he edited by Oxford University Press, was kind enough to pass along a short proposal to her in 2006 and then later do an incredibly detailed reading of the first four chapters of the manuscript. My principal copyeditor, John Morris, professionalized the project in incalculable ways, and Nancy Basmajian seamlessly carried on John’s work. Lastly, there are my closest friends and family who have been cheering me on from the beginning of the project, without whose cheering I likely would not have completed the task—most importantly, my love Diana Munoz, and my best friends Chris Street, Cecilia Salvatierra, and Carrie Sackett. My parents Lucy and Meer Ali are always to be thanked for their kindness of heart, humor, great stories, and even greater storytelling. Thank you. 170 Acknowledgments You are reading copyrighted material published by Ohio University Press/Swallow Press. Unauthorized posting, copying, or distributing of this work except as permitted under U.S. copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. ...