Brent Staples is an author and editorial writer for the New York Times.
Background
Brent Staples was born in 1951 in Chester, Pennsylvania, United States, in the family of Melvin and Geneva (Patterson) Staples. Before Staples was born, his parent moved from rural Virginia to Chester, Pennsylvania, as part of the Great Migration of blacks to industrial cities in the North and Midwest.
Education
In 1973 Brent received a Bachelor of Arts (cum laude) at Widener University, and then earned a Doctor of Philosophy at the University of Chicago in 1977.
Career
Staples joined the staff of the New York Times as an editor of the Book Review in 1985, and subsequently became assistant metropolitan editor. In 1990 he was appointed to the newspaper's editorial board.
As a writer, Brent has worked to correct the myth that the American "black experience" is defined only by poverty, violence, and crime. His books include "An American Love Story" and "Parallel Time: Growing up In Black and White", He writes about political, social and cultural issues, including race (his 1986 essay in Ms. Magazine "Just Walk on By: Black Men and Public Space" is deemed canonical) and the state of the American school system.