Background
Ely, Melvin Patrick was born on June 11, 1952 in Richmond, Virginia, United States.
(WINNER OF THE BANCROFT PRIZEA New York Times Book Review ...)
WINNER OF THE BANCROFT PRIZEA New York Times Book Review and Atlantic Monthly Editors' ChoiceThomas Jefferson denied that whites and freed blacks could live together in harmony. His cousin, Richard Randolph, not only disagreed, but made it possible for ninety African Americans to prove Jefferson wrong. Israel on the Appomattox tells the story of these liberated blacks and the community they formed, called Israel Hill, in Prince Edward County, Virginia. There, ex-slaves established farms, navigated the Appomattox River, and became entrepreneurs. Free blacks and whites did business with one another, sued each other, worked side by side for equal wages, joined forces to found a Baptist congregation, moved west together, and occasionally settled down as man and wife. Slavery cast its grim shadow, even over the lives of the free, yet on Israel Hill we discover a moving story of hardship and hope that defies our expectations of the Old South.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0679768726/?tag=2022091-20
Ely, Melvin Patrick was born on June 11, 1952 in Richmond, Virginia, United States.
AB summa cum laude, Princeton University, 1973. Master of Arts in History, Princeton University, 1982. Doctor of Philosophy in History, Princeton University, 1985.
Master of Arts in Linguistics, University Texas, Austin, 1978.
Postdoctoral fellow Carter G. Woodson Institute University Virginia, Charlottesville, 1985-1986. Assistant and associate professor history and African American studies Yale University, New Haven, 1986-1995. Associate professor and professor history and African studies College William and Mary, Williamsburg, Virginia, since 1995, Newton Family professor, 2005—2006, William R. Kenan Junior professor, since 2006.
Fulbright professor American studies Hebrew University, Jerusalem, 1998-1999.
(WINNER OF THE BANCROFT PRIZEA New York Times Book Review ...)
Board directors University Virginia Press, Charlottesville, 1999—2003, chair, 2003—2004, 2005—2008.
Son of Clarence Patrick and Vivien King Ely. M Naama Zahavi, September 14, 1983 (divorced). Children: Oren New Zealand, Kinneret K.S.
Married Jennifer R. Loux, Sep. 13, 2008; 1 child: Nathaniel Patrick.