On December 4, 2008, the Office for Diversity and Equal Opportunity at Yale, and Campus Progress hosted a lecture entitled, "Free Black Men: Reflections on Race and Masculinity in the Age of Obama," delivered by Dr. Elizabeth Alexander, Professor of African-American Studies at Yale University. Her lecture explored the emerging possibilities for the various projects of black male self-making in the wake of Obama's historic victory. She traced moments in the history of black men where their insurgent modes of being exploded static categories of masculinity and allowed for ways to love and cherish, lead and follow, be beautiful and proud, strong and vulnerable. In the recent explosion of particularly narrow categorizations of black male possibilities, Dr. Alexander argues that Obama represents a paradigm shift that must be appreciated for the freedom his example can afford many black men. And perhaps most importantly, Dr. Alexander drew an irreducible connection between the advances of black feminist theory and this project of free black manhood, arguing that black feminism is responsible for both the analytic tools and cultural resources with which to fully realize free black manhood in all of it's possible iterations.

Dr. Alexander, one of only four black women tenured as professors in Yale history, is an accomplished poet, essayist, and scholar. She is the author of five books of poems, including The Venus Hottentot (1990), Body of Life (1996), Antebellum Dream Book (2001), and a book for young adults, Miss Crandall's School for Young Ladies and Little Misses of Color (2007). Her most renowned work, American Sublime (2005), was one of the American Library Association's 25 Notable Books of the Year as well as one of three finalists for the Pulitzer Prize.

Her collection of essays on African American literature, painting, and popular culture, The Black Interior, was published in 2004, and a second collection of essays, Power and Possibility was released in 2007. Her verse play, "Diva Studies," was produced at the Yale School of Drama in May 1996. Dr. Alexander has taught at the University of Chicago, New York University's Graduate Creative Writing Program, and Smith College, where she was Grace Hazard Conkling Poet-in-Residence, first director of the Poetry Center at Smith College, and member of the founding editorial collective for the feminist journal Meridians.

Professor Alexander was an inaugural recipient of the Alphonse Fletcher, Sr. Fellowship for work that "contributes to improving race relations in American society and furthers the broad social goals of the U.S. Supreme Court's Brown v. Board of Education decision of 1954." In 2007, she was also awarded the first Jackson Prize for Poetry from Poets & Writers, Inc. The $50,000 prize honors an American poet of exceptional talent who has published at least one book of recognized literary merit but has not yet received major national acclaim.

Her national presence, however, is sure to change as she has just recently been selected to compose and deliver an original poem for the inauguration of the nation's first African-American president, Barack Obama. Alexander will be only the fourth poet to read at a swearing-in ceremony after Robert Frost, who read at John F. Kennedy's in 1961; Maya Angelou, who read at Clinton's in 1993; and Miller Williams, who read in 1997 for Clinton's second inaugural. Her selection has already been heralded by the London Guardian's Jay Parini as "an inspired choice" and the Chicago-based Poetry Foundation as "a perfect choice."

According to a Washington Post interview, Alexander has said, "I am obviously profoundly honored and thrilled...Not only to have a chance to have some small part of this extraordinary moment in American history. . . . This incoming president of ours has shown in every act that words matter, that words carry meaning, that words carry power, that words are the medium with which we communicate across difference and that words have tremendous possibilities, and those possibilities are not empty."