Washington University professor and author Gerald Early was inducted into the St. Louis Walk of Fame on Thursday morning before an enthusiastic crowd of family, colleagues, friends and admirers and to the accompaniment of a Dixieland band.
In accepting the honor, reserved for St. Louisians whose life and work have a national impact, Early remembered painful lessons he learned in his home city of Philadelphia, where his mother raised him in a tough, racially mixed working-class neighborhood after the death of Early’s father when he was an infant.
“The only way to stop being humiliated and embarrassed is to get better,” Early said after telling a story about his struggles playing baseball. “There is a kernel of cruelty in all learning.”
That is precisely the kind of sharp and fresh insights that pepper Early’s many books, essays, lectures and commentaries on Ken Burns’ landmark documentary films. They have landed him in the most prestigious humanities position at Washington University, with an endowed chair in English and until recently the direction of a center, the Center for the Humanities.
Chancellor Mark Wrighton, who remembered trying and failing to recruit Early to M.I.T. when Wrighton was provost there, also said Early would be founding a new journal of ideas.
Early’s mother, Florence Oglesby, and other family members traveled to St. Louis for the ceremony. Early credited his mother for his critical thinking and thanked his wife, Ida Early, for her support and leadership.
The ceremony was held at the Moonrise Hotel on the University City Loop. Joe Edwards, who founded the Walk of Fame and emceed the ceremony, said Early’s star will be placed at 6263 Delmar when some construction at that site is completed.
Early was the St. Louis American Foundation’s 2012 Lifetime Achiever in Education, one of the few credits from his extensive accomplishments that is cited on his Walk of Fame text.
