Cheryl A. Wall papers (MS.2020.006)

Biographical/Historical Note

Cheryl Ann Wall was born in Manhattan on October 29, 1948, to the Rev. Monroe Wall and Rennie Ray (Strayhorn) Wall, an English teacher for the New York City public schools. She graduated from the Rhodes Preparatory School in Manhattan and went on to earn a bachelor's degree in English from Howard University in 1970 and a doctorate from Harvard University in 1976. Wall's scholarship focused on Black women's writing, the Harlem Renaissance, and Zora Neale Hurston.

Wall began working at Rutgers University in 1972. During her career, which spanned nearly five decades, Wall advocated for racial diversity both in the curriculum and the classroom. She founded the Rutgers English Diversity Institute which encouraged more Black students to major in English and pursue postgraduate degrees. In 1997, Wall became one of the first Black women to head an English department at a major research university. She established the requirement that all Rutgers University English majors complete a course in African-American literature. Additionally, in 2003, Wall was co-principal with Mary Hartman of the Institute for Women's Leadership on "Reaffirming Action: Designs for Diversity in Higher Education," a Ford Foundation-funded initiative that examined the strategies higher education institutions successfully employ to enhance racial and gender equity.

Wall is the author of several books including On Freedom and the Will to Adorn: The Art of the African American Essay (2019), Worrying the Line: Black Women Writers, Lineage, and Literary Tradition (2005), Women of the Harlem Renaissance (1995), and the editor of Changing Our Own Words: Criticism, Theory, and Writing by Black Women (1989). She has edited two volumes of writing by Zora Neale Hurston for the Library of America – Novels and Short Stories (1995) and Folklore, Memoirs and Other Writings (1995) – as well as two volumes of criticism on Hurston's fiction: "Sweat:" Texts and Contexts (1997) and Their Eyes Were Watching God: A Casebook (2000). She was also the section editor for "Literature since 1975" in the Norton Anthology of African American Literature (2003).

Wall served on the editorial board of American Literature and on the advisory boards of African American Review and Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society. She was also the founding chairwoman of the board of Crossroads Theater Company in New Jersey. Crossroads continues its "commitment to literary works that examine the African American experience" and was the first African American theater to receive the 1999 Tony Award® for Outstanding Regional Theatre in the United States in the 33-year history of this award category.

Wall passed away on April 4, 2020, at her home in Highland Park, New Jersey, at the age of 71. On January 9, 2021, Wall was posthumously awarded the Hubbell Medal for Lifetime Achievement in American Literary Studies. Her daughter, Camara Epps, accepted the award on her behalf.