BY JANET MANDELSTAM Like many who come to Bloomington, John McCluskey, Jr. “figured we’d be here a couple of years.” And like many, “We looked up and, lo and behold, it’s been thirty years.” By the time the distinguished educator and author retired at the end of 2008 as professor of African-American Studies and African Diaspora at IU, he had led the successful efforts to establish first a master’s and then a Ph.D. program in the department; recruited and supported minority students as a graduate school administrator; co-edited Black Men Speaking, a 1997 collection of voices, stories, and poems, as well as several anthologies; cofounded the IU Press series Blacks in the Diaspora; and taught classes in creative writing as [...]
