Response: Lengthening Your Stride: Finding the Right Balance on the Tightrope

“Walking the Tightrope of Academe With No Net” explores the infrastructure of the academy and provides in great detail, a systematic account of many barriers impeding African American women from obtaining tenure and promotions at predominately White colleges and universities. The author draws on the lessons she learned while performing the balancing act and trying to walk the tightrope without falling. It was the late Dr. John Hope Franklin, a prolific scholar of African American history, who introduced the “tightrope walking” concept in his autobiography, Mirror to America.Franklin (2005) pointed out the struggles and discrimination he experienced throughout his trajectory in the academy more than 60 years ago. He explained,