On Hearing Call and Respecting Your Path

by Charles McKinney

I started grad school in the fall of 1990. I finished my master’s in 1994, and left screaming and cussing, swearing never to return to my program in history at Duke. I felt like grad school wasn’t worth the effort. I felt like I should be doing something more “substantive”, something more explicitly connected to the improvement of Black Life. So, I left, and spent several years working in the non-profit sector. Five hard, glorious years, doing work that I thought mattered.

Then something strange happened. I rediscovered my call to teach. Perhaps more importantly, I discovered a group of scholars who blurred the lines between scholarship and engagement, who made deliberate overtures towards the struggle for freedom and self-determination. The scales fell from my eyes; I had a serious come to Jesus moment – should I go back to grad school? I called in my crew of friends and held a clearness session. Yeah – I’m going back.

I returned to grad school in the fall of 1999. Almost all of the folks I came in with were gone. That hurt. What was downright agonizing was the fact that many of my friends had secured tenure-track jobs and were working their way towards tenure. I was now married, and our first child was on the way. This was going to be a very different ride. My ride or die wife Natalie was a rock for me. But it was disconcerting to be back in school, chipping away at a dissertation proposal while my brilliant cohort was finishing up their book revisions. It was intensely isolating. Intensely.

But the thing is, those years out of grad school absolutely helped me become a better teacher, and probably a better scholar. While I was out of school, I spent time working with and teaching kids who had no regard for formal titles and the assumptions that came along with them. “Why should we believe YOU, Mr. McKinney?” Great question, Javon. Now I have to spend chunks of time talking about the craft of history, how this stuff is produced, and what to look out for when you read it. Sets of questions I rarely got from elite undergrads. Teaching in a variety of settings, teaching a variety of students – from honor roll kids to folks in the juvenile justice system – was the very best preparation for me. Working at Public Allies North Carolina was an essential aspect of my professional development.

So, I know there’s a lot of us who question the never-straight trails we blaze as we make our way through grad school. I’m here to tell you – trust the path that you’re on, and don’t sweat it too much if it doesn’t look like other folks’ path. You ain’t other folks. You’re you.

Charles McKinney, PhD, is an associate professor of history and the Neville Frierson Bryan Chair of Africana Studies at Rhodes College in Memphis, Tennessee