Early works

In 1998, he began doing research for his biography on Betty Shabazz.^[8] In 2000, Rickford and his father co-wrote Spoken Soul: The Story of Black English, a book about African-American Vernacular English^[9] which won the American Book Award.^[10] The term "Spoken Soul" was coined by author Claude Brown in the 1960s and pays homage to the rhythmic, poetic qualities of African-American English.^[11]

In 2001,^[8] Rickford left his job in Philadelphia and moved into his parents' garage to write the first, and to date only, in-depth biography of Betty Shabazz.^[5] An effort that spanned five and a half years, Betty Shabazz: A Remarkable Story of Survival and Faith Before and After Malcolm X was published in 2003.^[8] Writing in The Crisis, William Jelani Cobb called Rickford's work "a thorough, insightful and engaging book, befitting its enigmatic—and ultimately heroic—subject".^[7]

Academia

In 2002, Rickford enrolled at Columbia University, studying for a master's degree in African-American studies under Manning Marable.^[12][13] Between 2003 and 2004, he contributed research to Marable's Malcolm X Project and, according to Marable, "was instrumental in setting up many oral histories and interviews" with Malcolm X's contemporaries.^[14] Marable credited Rickford with coining the term "Malcolmology" to describe the way in which African Americans rediscovered Malcolm X as a cultural icon after he was embraced by major hip-hop artists of the 1980s and 1990s.^[15] Rickford completed his doctorate in history at Columbia in 2009.^[13] His dissertation won that year's Bancroft Dissertation Award. His research concerns African-American politics after the Civil Rights Movement. In an interview, he said he was trying to answer the question, "Why did black nationalism become increasingly conservative towards the end of the 20th century?"^[16]

Rickford joined the Dartmouth faculty in 2009,^[16] moving to Cornell in 2014. In early 2011, he edited a collection of writings by Marable entitled Beyond Boundaries.^[17] Described by his former mentor as "one of the most talented and insightful" members of a new generation of black intellectuals,^[18] In 2016, Rickford completed a history of Pan-Africanist private schools during the Black Power era titled We Are an African People: Independent Education, Black Power, and the Radical Imagination.^[2]

In October 2023, a video was publicized of Rickford speaking at an October 15 rally held in support of Palestinians after the 2023 Hamas attack on Israel,^[19][20] where according to The Telegraph, he "appeared to refer to the massacre of more than 1,400 Israelis on Oct 7 by the terrorist group as a 'challenge to the monopoly of violence'."^[21] He also said "It was exhilarating".^[21][20][22] Cornell officials issued statements over the next several days condemning his remarks.^{[20][19][23][22]} On October 18, the Cornell Daily Sun published a letter from Rickford that included, "I apologize for the horrible choice of words that I used in a portion of a speech that was intended to stress grassroots African American, Jewish and Palestinian traditions of resistance to oppression."^[24][25][22] By October 20, U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand and U.S. Representative Claudia Tenney had called for Rickford to be fired.^[25][26][22] A semester leave of absence for Rickford was announced on October 21.^[27]