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Earl Wright II joins the Department of Anthropology and Sociology as Professor of Sociology. Dr. Wright graduated from Trezevant High School (Memphis, TN) and later received a Ph.D. from the University of Nebraska. Prior to coming to Rhodes he served on the faculty at the University of Cincinnati, Texas Southern University (as Chairperson of the Department of Sociology), Fisk University, and University of Central Florida. Dr. Wright's primary research and teaching interests are on the contributions of Blacks to American sociology and the sociology of hip hop. In 2016, he was selected by the Southern Sociological Society (SSS) as the recipient of the Charles S. Johnson Award for excellence in research on race and the South and was recently elected president of SSS. While at the University of Cincinnati, Dr. Wright co-founded an initiative that promoted community-partnered research relationships with local stakeholders. Having been reared less than two miles from Rhodes' campus, Dr. Wright is very excited about the opportunity to continue his community engaged works in his hometown and the neighborhoods where he once lived.

Wright has served one-year terms as president of the Association of Black Sociologists (2012-2013), Mid-South Sociological Association (2012-2013), and Southern Sociological Society (2022-2023).
 

Books

(Routledge, 2024)

Jim Crow Sociology: The Black and Southern Roots of American Sociology (University of Cincinnati Press, 2020).

Conferences

Keynote speaker: 55th Annual Conference of the Association of Black Sociologists, Oct. 2025

Organizer and speaker: “Through a Du Boisian Lens: Informing Public Policy Through Empirical Social Research,” a symposium honoring the 130th anniversary of the W.E.B. Du Bois-led Atlanta Sociological Laboratory at Clark Atlanta University. Sept. 2025