William Manning Marable (May 13, 1950 – April 1, 2011) was an American professor of public affairs, history and African-American Studies at Columbia University. Marable founded and directed the Institute for Research in African-American Studies. He wrote several texts and was active in numerous progressive political causes. At the time of his death, he had completed a biography of human rights activist Malcolm X, titled Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention (2011). Marable was posthumously awarded the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for History for this work. Life and career Marable was born and raised in Dayton, Ohio. His parents were both graduates of Central State, an historically black university in nearby Wilberforce. His mother was an ordained minister and held a Ph.D. In April 1968, at the behest of his mother, 17-year-old Marable covered the funeral of Martin Luther King Jr. for Dayton's black newspaper. He graduated from Jefferson Township High School shortly thereafter. Marable received his Bachelor of Arts degree from Earlham College (1971) and went on to earn his master's degree (1972) and Ph.D. (1976) in history, at the University of Wisconsin, and University of Maryland. Marable served on the faculty of Smith College, Tuskegee Institute, University of San Francisco, Cornell University, Fisk University, served as the founding director of the Africana and Hispanic Studies Program at Colgate University, Purdue University, Ohio State University, and University of Colorado at Boulder, where he was chairman of the Department of Black Studies. He was recruited in 1993 by Columbia University professor Eric Foner to be the founding director of Columbia's Institute for Research in African-American Studies, and was later appointed as the M. Moran Weston and Black Alumni Council Professor of African-American Studies and professor of history and public affairs. In 1979, Marable joined the New American Movement (NAM), an organization of veterans of the New Left who were trying to build a successor to Students for a Democratic Society. In 1982, NAM merged with Michael Harrington’s Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee to form the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), and Marable was elected as one of the new organization’s vice chairs. He left the DSA in 1985 after Michael Harrington and his allies, following the lead of much of the mainstream union leadership, refused to back Jesse Jackson’s insurgent campaign in 1984. Marable served as Chair of Movement for a Democratic Society (MDS). Marable served on the Board of Directors for