Face Value:Charles McKinney

Who is your favorite person?
My family

What do you value?
The capacity to transform oneself and one's surroundings

In his words:

Jazz is so much a part of my existence. Isaac Jenkins, my high-school music teacher, is a hero to me. He introduced me to jazz and taught me that hard work makes for beautiful music, a lesson I re-learn every day. I love him for that.

Whenever I'm writing or reading or talking with someone, I think in jazz riffs, trading fours, short or extended solos, the utility of a big band or a quartet. Jazz for me is kind of a paradigm for interacting. I think of rhythm when I make presentations, when I lecture. That give and take of intellectual discourse is mirrored in jazz. It also reminds me that both parties in a dialogue have an equally vital role; whether I'm talking with a student, or conducting an interview, or talking to one of my kids, we're equal partners in that dialogue.

My dad is still the man I want to be when I grow up. But as I get older, I realize how much like my mother I am. They played a crucial role in my life. My grandparents on my mother's side were tenant farmers who raised a dozen children and six grandchildren and lived through Jim Crow and other sweeping changes. They were married for seventy-three years. Their lives are a testament to strength and family and love.

As a historian, you analyze the past and take lessons from it that you can apply to the future. To inform society of African America's past is to inform society of America's past. And so, one of my challenges is to get people to understand that it doesn't make any sense to view their lives, their history, apart from the history of African Americans in this country.