The recent election of Dr. Ravi Perry to lead the National Association for Ethnic Studies (NAES) is anything but fortuitous.
His 82-year-old father, Dr. Robert Perry, is considered a pioneer in the field of ethnic studies and was one of the founding members of the nonprofit organization created in 1972 to provide an interdisciplinary forum for scholars and activists concerned with the national and international dimensions of ethnicity.
But Perry, a rising star in academe, isn’t merely operating in his father’s shadow. The 32-year-old political science professor at Mississippi State University (MSU) has bold plans to push the organization in the direction of becoming more engaged in the day-to-day fight against social injustices such as homophobia and police brutality.
“Ethnic studies as an academic discipline has grown substantially since the founding of this organization,” said Perry, who is the youngest person to lead NAES. “As president, I want to put us in a position where we not only maintain and grow as academics, but that we also grow our activist orientation.”
For Perry, who is openly gay and is married to his partner, the role of academic and activist is one in the same. Several years ago, he surprised some of his contemporaries when he left a tenure-track faculty position at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts, and moved with his husband to the conservative town of Starkville, Mississippi.
“It was a head scratcher for some because we chose to move here,” said Perry, who will leave MSU in the fall to become an associate professor of political science at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) in Richmond.
During his tenure at MSU, Perry became a visible presence on campus. He served as the faculty adviser to LGBTQ students and was able to “help the community of Starkville move forward on LGBT initiatives” while churning out several scholarly works, including a new book released this week that he co-authored with his mother, Dr. D. LaRouth Perry, about the fight to integrate Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, in 1957.
