- Forum in Honor of Dr. Bobby M. Wilson, a Geographer of the American South: Introduction
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Dr. Bobby Wilson, 1947–2021. Photo credit: Department of Geography, University of Alabama.
This forum curates comments and reflections originally developed for a panel convened to remember and honor the life and work of Dr. Bobby Wilson (Figure 1), who passed away in August of 2021. The panel took place on Monday, November 22 in Florence, AL at the 2021 annual meeting of the Southeastern Division of the American Association of Geographers (SEDAAG). It is customary in our discipline to create these moments at conferences and in publications to mark the passing of important and admired colleagues. Indeed, while our discipline is an intellectual exercise — it is also a set of social, emotional, and memorial practices. Graduating with a Ph.D. in geography from Clark University, Bobby Wilson served on the faculty at the University of Alabama- Birmingham from 1974 to 2002. He later joined the faculty at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, where he also served as Head of the Department of Geography and retired. Dr. Wilson’s work has shaped the field of geography in indelible and lasting ways.
Of particular note are Dr. Wilson’s contributions to Black Geographies scholarship, research on the political economy of development in the US South as it intersected with the Black civil rights movement. He was at the forefront of advancing a Marxist analysis and arguing passionately for incorporating a critical understanding of socially constructed racial divisions and what he termed “race-connected practices” into a historical materialist approach. In particular, Dr. Wilson argued for examining how the South’s racialized path to industrialization diverged from classical models of American capital accumulation that tended to ignore subnational regional analysis.
It was through Dr. Wilson’s many publications and presentations on the social and economic geography of Birmingham, Alabama in which he demonstrated this pioneering theorizing of the intersection of industrialization, racism, and civil rights in the Southeast. Birmingham — although highly consequential to the struggle for racial equality as well as a key node in the southern economy — had not received the attention it should have until Dr. Wilson’s work. Moreover, Dr. Wilson’s articles on Birmingham represent some of the first critical treatments of race in Southeastern Geographer, now a journal known widely for publishing Black Geographies scholarship. Dr. Wilson’s research on Birmingham would lead to two landmark books published in 2000 by Rowman & Little-field: Race and Place in Birmingham: The Civil Rights and Neighborhood Movements and [End Page 177] America’s Johannesburg: Industrialization and Racial Transformation in Birmingham. The highly acclaimed America’s Johannesburg would later be republished by the University of Georgia Press in 2019 as part of its Geographies of Justice and Social Transformation Series. When authoring the foreword for this new edition of America’s Johannesburg, renowned scholar Ruth Wilson Gilmore noted in particular the deliberate thoroughness and meticulous development of ideas and evidence with which Dr. Wilson worked.
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Dr. Wilson at the University of Alabama. Photo credit: Department of Geography, University of Alabama.
Dr. Wilson made sizable contributions to geographic thought and practice and in advancing anti-racist work. In recognition of this fact, the American Association of Geographers (AAG) recognized Bobby for advancing anti-racist work in geography, awarding him a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2015 and the Presidential Achievement Award in 2012. Both awards are the highest and most prestigious honors that a colleague can receive, reserved only for the discipline’s giants. At the 2019 AAG Annual Meeting, Dr. Wilson’s work was also the subject of two panels titled “Reframing Marxism and Race: The Scholarship of Bobby Wilson.” The panels not only celebrated Dr. Wilson’s scholarly contributions to the discipline and Black Geographies, but his mentorship of junior scholars and anti-racist activism. The panelists were Adam Bledsoe, Joe Darden, Ruth Wilson Gilmore, Perla Guerrero, Wendy Cheng, Benjamin Rubin, and Willie Wright. Yet, his scholarly work and professional contributions were not always appreciated as much [End Page...