• E-mail
• Print
• Comment
• Font Size
• Digg
• del.icio.us
• Discuss article

The Wisconsin State Journal Bill Wineke Column: McKay's Story Holds Triumph, Lies

Posted on: Saturday, 1 April 2006, 12:00 CST

By Bill Wineke, The Wisconsin State Journal

Mar. 31--UW-Madison is holding a symposium today in honor of the late Nellie McKay, a faculty giant who virtually created the field of Afro-American Studies on this campus.

McKay died Jan. 22 of cancer. The word is that she was 75 years old, though many of her colleagues assumed she was in her 50s and her closest friends say they don't know for sure just how old she was.

In fact, the mysteries surrounding McKay are just beginning to unravel and, as they do, she becomes more and more fascinating.

She wanted to be judged as an academician, not as an interesting human being, however. And, as an academician, she was first-rate. She built the Department of Afro-American Studies here into one of the best in the country. She and her far more famous colleague, Henry Louis Gates of Harvard, were co-editors of the "Norton Anthology of African American Literature," a 2,600-page tome that set the canon for the subject.

Those accomplishments are what the symposium will highlight. Sessions will be held in Room 1100 of Grainger Hall and are open to the public. For most of McKay's friends, a program beginning at 7:30 p.m. today featuring a film about her life and readings from dozens of colleagues will probably be the most interesting part of the seminar.

But Nellie McKay the human being will no doubt be the topic of discussion during the coffee breaks.

That's the Nellie McKay who told her friends and colleagues she and her younger sister, Patricia, entered Harvard together in the 1970s, the sister as an undergraduate and Nellie as a Ph.D. candidate.

After her death, it turned out the "sister" was McKay's daughter and that McKay also had a son, Harry. She had been married and divorced when she was young and didn't tell even her closest friends in Madison about that part of her life.

Why would she keep such an important part of her life so private? No one knows for sure -- except that, when you think about it, she would have been well into middle-age when she graduated from Harvard and joined the UW-Madison faculty.

Universities either like to hire young faculty and watch them grow or to raid other universities for established, distinguished faculty. If Nellie McKay thought a middle-aged black woman just starting her academic career might be at a competitive disadvantage back in the 1970s, can you argue that she was wrong?

Here's what's interesting to me: McKay started her career with a lie. Once that lie was accepted, she really had no good way to change it without subjecting herself and her department to gossip and ridicule. So she didn't.

Because she started her career on a lie she very likely ended up with a career and not just a mediocre career. She became a giant in her field, a mentor to young scholars across the country. More than any other person, she is responsible for academic interest in the work of female black authors.

And, yet, do we really want to argue that living a lie is a good idea? You tell me.

-----

Copyright (c) 2006, The Wisconsin State Journal

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

For information on republishing this content, contact us at (800) 661-2511 (U.S.), (213) 237-4914 (worldwide), fax (213) 237-6515, or e-mail reprints@krtinfo.com.

Source: The Wisconsin State Journal

More News in this Category