The poet, educator, and scholar Elizabeth Alexander, president of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, views her work as an urgent political act. Following in the footsteps of her father, who was a civil rights advisor and special counsel to President Lyndon B. Johnson, Alexander has witnessed the sometimes exasperatingly slow pace of progress, particularly when it comes to racial equality, and the resoluteness required for the vital work of pressing on. She approaches each day as an opportunity to do as much as she can, with all she has.
Through her teaching, scholarship, and poetry, Alexander built the foundation for her role as a philanthropic leader. She has held professorships at the University of Chicago; Smith College; Yale University, where she worked for 15 years and chaired the African American studies department; and Columbia University. From 2015 to 2018, she served as director of creativity and free expression at the Ford Foundation, and last year, launched the Mellon Foundation’s Monuments Project, a $250 million initiative that aims to rethink and transform America’s commemorative landscape.
Alexander’s consciousness and compassion are especially apparent in her writing, which often weaves together biography, history, and memory to potent effect. In articles for publications such as Time and The New Yorker, she has reflected, with great acuity, on racist violence in America. Her collection American Sublime (2005) and memoir, The Light of the World (2015), were both finalists for the Pulitzer Prize. At President Barack Obama’s 2009 inauguration, she recited her optimistic, clear-eyed poem “Praise Song for the Day.”
On this episode, Alexander discusses the vast possibilities of social justice, talking with Spencer about using language to promote change, how monuments and memorials shape collective memory, and the profundity of grounding oneself in the present.
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