By Laurie Paolicelli
“My life’s creative challenge is wielding the tension between powerful narrative and compelling data to center Black intellectual lives as craft and method. Radically better metaphors for a radically better public life.” —UNC Professor, Dr. Tressie McMillan Cottom
In Chapel Hill we are surrounded by stars of all kinds, but the most important, by far, are our teachers. Without them we would be just another town on a hill.
On a late summer night not long ago, at a small black book store situated on a quiet street near Durham, almost equidistant from the University of North Carolina and North Carolina Central, a group of four prestigious women were on a platform debating the writings of celebrated author, speaker and UNC Chapel Hill Professor, Tressie McMillan Cottom.
On the panel was Naledi Yaziyo, owner and curator of Rofhiwa Books in Durham; Carliss Chatman, Professor at Washington and Lee University School of Law, Lindsey Andrews, Director and Founder of Night School Bar, and the recipient of this fundraising event; and Dr. Cottom herself.
Events like this are common in a college town. Book readings, public discourse and debates are often held in public venues. What was surprising in this one was the diversity of the overflowing crowd, all of whom were captivated listening to McMillan Cottom speak.
Dr. Tressie McMillan Cottom & Laurie Paolicelli
Tressie McMillan Cottom is a sociologist, professor at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, columnist for the New York Times, and a 2020 MacArthur Fellow. Her 2017 book, Lower Ed, has been cited by influential American policymakers, among them the esteemed senator from Vermont, Bernie Sanders. Cottom published Thick: And Other Essays in 2019.
Her curriculum vitae is astonishing. In addition to being an associate professor at the UNC School of Information and Library Science (SILS), she is a senior faculty researcher with the Center for Information, Technology, and Public Life (CITAP), and a faculty affiliate at Harvard University’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society.
Tressie McMillan Cottom Pens a Cover for Vanity Fair
Thick: And Other Essays has been described as “a kind of manifesto.” The essays touch on topics as diverse as sexual abuse, divorce, the death of a child, and broader issues dealing with race, beauty, and education. McMillan Cottom interrogates how assumptions about wealth, competence, and pain undermine black women’s efforts to achieve health and financial security.
McMillan Cottom is a vital part of Chapel Hill’s mission to be one of the finest universities in the country. Freedom of expression has long been a cornerstone of this mission and, while we haven’t always lived up to our goals, it is not for lack of trying. McMillan Cottom is both a sentinel and a messenger, a star in our midst, an example of our hopes and ideals.
- Website: https://tressiemc.com/
- Sample Podcast: Earn Your Slay
- Tressie’s New York Times Newsletter
