Gloria Wade-Gayles, Ph.D., author, scholar, poet, activist and longtime professor at Spelman College, shaped generations of students, many of whom went on to impact lives and communities in their own right.
Wade-Gayles died Jan. 25 of a heart attack, her family said. She was 88 and a current member of the Spelman College faculty.
She is being remembered for her many accomplishments and activism. Wade-Gayles became an eminent scholar at Dillard University, where she taught in the late 1990s, and at Spelman College.
During her first year on the Spelman faculty in 1963, she was dismissed because of her civil rights activism. She returned in 1983.
Wade-Gayles was born in Memphis, Tennessee, during the era of Jim Crow segregation.
“She became a fighter for civil rights after growing up in Jim Crow,” her daughter, Monica Gayles Dorsey, said. “She marched, protested, and traveled on buses for voting rights. She was a member of (the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee) and marched with Dr. King.”
Wade-Gayles’ mother, Bertha Willett, poured an unconditional love into her daughter that was in turn extended to the late professor’s own family and students, Wade-Gayles’ son Jonathan Gayles said.
“My grandmother’s love for her daughter was boundless,” he said. “She did everything she could to make sure that the limitations segregated Memphis attempted to place on them did not apply — that they were always exceptional. ”
Those close to Wade-Gayles say her rare blend of intellectual depth and deep love for people defined her most and will remain her enduring legacy.
Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Jericho Brown, who was mentored by Wade-Gayles in New Orleans, said she believed everyone carried a writer within them and a story worthy of telling.
“She thought it was very important that the lives of Black people, and Black women in particular, be recorded and archived,” Brown said. “That we have evidence and proof of our survival.”
Award-winning author and Emory University professor Tayari Jones said Wade-Gayles profoundly shaped her worldview.
“She was a powerhouse of an intellectual,” said Jones, a former student of Wade-Gayles and a family friend since childhood.
“She was the first person to say the word ‘feminism’ to me,” Jones added. “She changed my worldview. She revealed that a lot of things I thought were personal were systemic.”
Wade-Gayles taught in Spelman’s English department from 1983 to 1998 and in the psychology department beginning in 2001.
Beverly Guy-Sheftall, Ph.D., professor of comparative women’s studies at Spelman College and a fellow Memphis native, said her bond with Wade-Gayles dates back more than 50 years.
“Her extraordinary career at historically Black colleges and universities is now legendary, and her Black feminist scholarship places her among the pioneers of contemporary feminist theory,” Guy-Sheftall said. “We will miss Gloria’s humor, passion, love for Black colleges and outspoken critiques of social injustice.”
Wade-Gayles was the author of six books and wrote extensively for national journals. She was named an Eminent Scholar at both Dillard University and Spelman College.
She received an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters from Meadville-Lombard Theological School of the University of Chicago, according to her Spelman biography, and was named the CASE Professor of Teaching Excellence for the State of Georgia. She was also awarded the Emory Medal, Emory University’s honor for outstanding scholarship and service, and served as a Du Bois Fellow at Harvard University.
Her honors included the Spelman College President’s Award for Outstanding Scholarship, the LeMoyne-Owen Du Bois Scholars Award, and the Malcolm X Award for Community Service in Atlanta for her work during the Civil Rights Movement and continued work for justice.
Fulton County Commissioner Mo Ivory said Wade-Gayles infused her with confidence. Ivory grew close to the Wade-Gayles family soon after arriving at Spelman in 1987, she said.
“She gave me my voice,” Ivory said. “She gave me the foundation of my confidence. She told me to say what I needed to say, be who I was, and never apologize for how that comes out.”
Tameka Cage Conley, a professor at Oxford College of Emory University, said Wade-Gayles recognized her uncertainty about what to do after graduating from Dillard University and persuaded then-president Michael Lomax to offer her a postgraduate fellowship. She became Wade-Gayles research assistant.
“Her heart was bigger than life,” daughter Monica said. “She was the true definition of what it means to be selfless. I have been impacted by witnessing her love for every person she met.”
Wade-Gayles is survived by her son, Jonathan Gayles; daughter Monica Gayles Dorsey; grandchildren Tyler Kate Dorsey, Andrew Joseph Dorsey, Grace Isabella Reese Gayles, Gabrielle Simone Marie Gayles; her sister Faye Henning; and nephew Loren (Eric).
Funeral arrangements are pending, the family said.
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