The Professional Life of an African American Male Librarian: An Interlude and a Return

Hello! 

I have been missing in action from this blog since 2020. 

Life happened. 

From 2020 to 2022, I worked as a mortgage banker and then a mortgage underwriter for Rocket Mortgage. Like many in the industry, I took a buyout when rising interest rates forced Rocket Mortgage and others mortgage companies to trim their employee rosters. I did not waste time during this period. In fact, I worked harder for that corporation than I ever did for any other entity. Because of the Rocket Mortgage's incredibly competitive environment, I became more self-confident. I grew my personal brand and appreciated what I bring to the table. 

More importantly, I understood what brought me joy. 

Some of you may know that I had been a doctoral student at Oakland University since September 2015. On April 29, 2023, I was graduated from the doctoral program in Literacy, Culture, and Language at OU. My dissertation focuses on the roles of literacy and literacy instruction in the antebellum slave narratives of Frederick Douglass, William Wells Brown, Henry Bibb, and Harriet Jacobs. I argue that the ability to read, write, listen, and speak enabled these authors to engage in the early-to mid-nineteenth-century political conversations and debates about slavery and thus to fight oppression on a global scale. 

My blog focuses literacy and librarianship from this sociopolitical perspective. 

Now that I have earned my Ph.D., I will use this space to engage in the sociopolitical conversations about librarianship, literacy, and literacy instruction in the twenty-first century. 

Librarianship and libraries are political.

Literacy and literacy instruction are political. 

Anything we do as citizens in our various communities is inherently political. 

Political neutrality is impossible.