African-American scholar Kilson honored at Temple conference

Martin Kilson Jr. (center), joined by his wife, Marion Kilson, and Temple philosophy professor Lewis Gordon, enjoys the exchange of ideas during last week’s conference focusing on black civil society in American political life. Temple’s Institute for the Study of Race and Social Thought, which Gordon directs, presented the conference to honor Kilson, the first African American to receive full tenure at Harvard University.

Hailing from Princeton and Penn, Harvard and Northeastern, Lincoln, CUNY and the University of California, a cadre of nationally prominent African-American studies scholars joined their Temple colleagues to pay tribute to the life and scholarship of Martin Kilson Jr., the first African American to be granted full tenure at Harvard, during a daylong conference Sept. 15 at Shusterman Hall.

Presented by the University’s Institute for the Study of Race and Social Thought, the conference, “Black Civil Society in American Political Life: A Conference in Honor of Martin L. Kilson Jr.,” was the logical way to laud Kilson, Harvard’s Frank G. Thomson Professor of Government, Emeritus, according to Temple philosophy professor Lewis Gordon.

“He is, first and foremost, a scholar,” said Gordon, director of the Institute for the Study of Race and Social Thought, noting that while Kilson, who received tenure from Harvard in 1968, was delighted with the institute’s idea to proceed with the celebration, he insisted that it be driven by scholarship.

“He said he’d rather do the conference — and this is a tribute to the man he is — as an intellectual project, not just a celebration.

“He worked very hard to integrate scholarship into public life,” Gordon continued. “He’s a public intellectual.”

Formally and informally, Kilson has “schooled” many prominent African-American leaders and thinkers, including NAACP chairman Julian Bond, Columbia University’s Farrah Griffin and Princeton’s Cornel West, who studied under Kilson at Harvard. West attended last Thursday’s conference and spoke on “African-Americans and American Democracy.”

But all African-American scholars have benefited from Kilson and his work, noted Anthony Monteiro, a distinguished lecturer in African-American studies at Temple and a leading W.E.B. DuBois scholar.

“He is a selfless man,” Monteiro said. “He puts black people, not himself, first.”

Temple political science professor Hawley Fogg-Davis, who argued that the issue of street harassment has to be considered in any discussion of black civil society, noted that Kilson went out of his way to assist her when she was a Harvard undergrad preparing for her senior thesis.

“You were kind enough to give me your time — and to ask very important questions,” Fogg-Davis told Kilson.

Kilson also mentored Jane Gordon, associate director the Institute for the Study of Race and Social Thought and a lecturer in the political science department, sending her suggestions as she worked on her books, she said.

But Lewis Gordon, who joined Temple’s faculty from Brown last fall, said he didn’t meet Kilson until 1998, when they came together at a DuBois conference in Philadelphia.

“When we met, he kissed me and hugged me and we sat right down and started an intellectual exchange,” Gordon said. “He’s important not only in the history of African-American politics, but also of the academy.

“He was tenured very early,” Gordon said. “He saw that as placing on him a tremendous responsibility. Though he is emeritus, he’s still mentoring young scholars.”

According to Gordon, papers from the conference will be compiled into a Festschrift, a volume in tribute to Kilson. Gordon, Monteiro and Jane Gordon will serve as editors, he said.

Among the other presenters last week were: Temple visiting assistant professor of English Don Belton, who presented two poems for the occasion; political scientist Rogers Smith and sociology professor Elijah Anderson of Penn; Lincoln history and political science professor F. Carl Walton; University of California–Riverside historian P. Sterling Stuckey; Salem State College social anthropologist Marion Kilson; CUNY English professor Jerry G. Watts; Northeastern African-American studies and history professor Robert Hall; and Kilson, who gave an evening address to end the conference — and the celebration.

- By Barbara Baals