James Early
Cultural educator James Counts Early was born in Ocala, Florida, on December 12, 1947. Early studied Spanish at Morehouse College in Atlanta, earning his B.A. in 1969. He also spent a year studying in Panama at the Canal Zone College. After graduation, Early attended Howard University, where he received his M.A. degree in 1971, and then studied for his Ph.D. degree. While there, he also attended Georgetown University, where he studied Portuguese at the Advanced Portuguese Institute.
During his years as a student, Early worked a number of jobs that helped to shape his career. At the Martin Luther King Center, he worked in the archives and then from 1970 to 1971 as an administrative and research assistant to the director of the Institute of the Black World. In 1973, he went to work at the Smithsonian Institute as a folklore consultant and researcher. He was promoted in 1974 to the acting administrator until 1976. That year, he became an associate professor at Antioch College in Washington, D.C., and worked in research at Howard University's Institute for the Arts and Humanities. In 1978, Early became the producer, writer and host of Ten Minutes Left, a weekly radio show on WHUR-FM. He hosted this program for five years while working at the National Endowment for the Humanities as the humanist administrator. He worked at NEH until 1984 when he returned to the Smithsonian Institute to work as the executive assistant to the assistant secretary for public service. Since then, he has held a variety of positions including working as the assistant provost for educational and cultural programs; director of cultural studies and communication at the Center for Folklife and Cultural Studies; and director of cultural heritage policy at the Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage.
Active in many organizations, Early served on the founding steering committee of the International Network for Cultural Diversity and was the humanities coordinator of the Trans-Africa Afro Americans and Cuba Cultural Conversation Project in 2000. He has served on the board of directors of the Children's Studio School since 1993, and since 1995 on the National Black Program Consortium, a program that funds independent black filmmakers. Early is a renaissance man. He writes on the politics of culture, lectures internationally and works with those in prison. Skilled with languages, Early is fluent in Spanish, can converse in Portuguese, reads French and has some knowledge of Mandarin Chinese.
A2003.118
Male
6/4/2003
Early
Lucy Moten Training School
Morehouse College
James
Ocala
EAR01
Spring
Florida
Cuba
In Peace, Progress, and Justice.

District of Columbia
1/12/1947
Washington
United States
Brussels Sprouts
Cultural heritage administrator and folklorist James Early (1947 - ) had a long career in the humanities holding positions in institutions such as the Center for Folklife and Cultural Studies, the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Smithsonian.
Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change
Institute of the Black World
Smithsonian Institute
Antioch College
Howard University Institute for the Arts and Humanities
WHUR Radio
National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH)
Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage
Green
Tape: 1 Story: 1 - Slating of James Early's interview
Tape: 1 Story: 2 - James Early lists his favorites
Tape: 1 Story: 3 - James Early shares stories of his maternal family's life in Central Florida during the early to mid-20th century
Tape: 1 Story: 4 - James Early describes his mother
Tape: 1 Story: 5 - James Early describes his maternal grandmother
Tape: 1 Story: 6 - James Early describes his father
Tape: 1 Story: 7 - James Early describes his relationship with his father
Tape: 1 Story: 8 - James Early describes how his relationship with his father influenced his relationship with his sons
Tape: 1 Story: 9 - James Early imagines how his parents met
Tape: 1 Story: 10 - James Early describes his paternal family background
Tape: 1 Story: 11 - James Early describes the sights, smells, and sounds of his childhood in Dunnellon, Florida
Tape: 2 Story: 1 - James Early describes his move to Tallahassee, Florida
Tape: 2 Story: 2 - James Early describes his experiences in school in Tallahassee, Florida
Tape: 2 Story: 3 - James Early describes growing up in Tallahassee, Florida
Tape: 2 Story: 4 - James Early talks about joining the Episcopal Church as a youth
Tape: 2 Story: 5 - James Early talks about his independence
Tape: 2 Story: 6 - James Early describes what type of student he was
Tape: 2 Story: 7 - James Early talks about the flexibility of his aspirations
Tape: 2 Story: 8 - James Early describes enrolling at Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia, pt. 1
Tape: 2 Story: 9 - James Early describes enrolling at Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia, pt. 2
Tape: 2 Story: 10 - James Early describes his experiences attending Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia
Tape: 3 Story: 1 - James Early talks about experimenting with drugs and his social circle as a student at Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia
Tape: 3 Story: 2 - James Early describes attending Panama Canal College in the Panama Canal Zone from 1966 to 1967
Tape: 3 Story: 3 - James Early describes how the culture of Black Power and black intellectualism during the late 1960s affected him
Tape: 3 Story: 4 - James Early describes taking over Morehouse College in 1969
Tape: 3 Story: 5 - James Early describes receiving a Southern Foundation Fellowships to study at the Institute of the Black World
Tape: 3 Story: 6 - James Early describes receiving a Ford Foundation Fellowship to pursue his doctorate degree at Howard University
Tape: 3 Story: 7 - James Early describes his move to Washington, D.C.
Tape: 3 Story: 8 - James Early describes his experiences pursuing his doctoral degree at Howard University
Tape: 3 Story: 9 - James Early describes being hired by the Smithsonian Institution
Tape: 4 Story: 1 - James Early describes his experiences studying at Howard University for his Ph.D. degree
Tape: 4 Story: 2 - James Early talks about HistoryMaker Haki Madhubuti
Tape: 4 Story: 3 - James Early talks about HistoryMaker Bernice Johnson Reagon
Tape: 4 Story: 4 - James Early describes the start of his radio show "Ten Minutes Left" on WHUR-FM
Tape: 4 Story: 5 - James Early describes his radio show on WHUR-FM, "Ten Minutes Left," pt. 1
Tape: 4 Story: 6 - James Early describes his radio show on WHUR-FM, "Ten Minutes Left," pt. 2
Tape: 4 Story: 7 - James Early describes quitting his Ph.D. program at Howard University
Tape: 4 Story: 8 - James Early comments on his confidence and sense of self direction
Tape: 4 Story: 9 - James Early reflects upon not earning his doctoral degree at Howard University
Tape: 5 Story: 1 - James Early describes being hired as a Field Researcher for the Smithsonian Office of Folklife Programs
Tape: 5 Story: 2 - James Early describes his experiences working as a Field Researcher for the Smithsonian Office of Folklife Programs
Tape: 5 Story: 3 - James Early describes his experiences working as executive assistant to the assistant secretary for public service at the Smithsonian Institution
Tape: 5 Story: 4 - James Early talks about losing his job as executive assistant to the assistant secretary for public service at the Smithsonian Institution
Tape: 5 Story: 5 - James Early describes the challenges he faced at the Smithsonian Office of Folklife Programs, pt. 1
Tape: 5 Story: 6 - James Early describes the challenges he faced at the Smithsonian Office of Folklife Programs, pt. 2
Tape: 5 Story: 7 - James Early describes why he was drawn to Cuba
Tape: 5 Story: 8 - James Early talks about cultural debates in Cuba
Tape: 5 Story: 9 - James Early comments on racial and national identity in Cuba
Tape: 6 Story: 1 - James Early talks about scholars on Cuban race and culture
Tape: 6 Story: 2 - James Early comments on the meaning of culture
Tape: 6 Story: 3 - James Early describes how Eurocentric paradigms have shaped oppressive culture, pt. 1
Tape: 6 Story: 4 - James Early describes how Eurocentric paradigms have shaped oppressive culture, pt. 2
Tape: 6 Story: 5 - James Early shares his hopes and concerns for the black community, pt. 1
Tape: 6 Story: 6 - James Early shares his hopes and concerns for the black community, pt. 2
Tape: 6 Story: 7 - James Early shares his hopes and concerns for the black community, pt. 3
Tape: 6 Story: 8 - James Early reflects upon his legacy
Tape: 6 Story: 9 - James Early talks about his future plans
Tape: 7 Story: 1 - James Early talks about how he would like to be remembered
Tape: 7 Story: 2 - James Early narrates his photographs
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