Honoring Dr. Jeffery Leak: A Life Led with Compassion, Purpose, and Commitment

Dr. Jeffrey B. Leak, a Full Professor in the Department of English at UNC Charlotte, died on June 29, 2026, after a two-year illness. He was 57 years old at the time of his death.

Dr. Leak was born on August 13, 1969, and grew up in Charlotte.  As a boy, he loved playing basketball with his friends in the neighborhood near Beatties Ford Road and spending time in the local branch of Charlotte Mecklenburg Library. In recalling his experiences in the library, he wrote, “I have a long-standing appreciation for the public library. I grew up near what is now Northwest School of the Arts, riding my bike in the summer to the library, then on LaSalle Street, now on Beatties Ford Road. My journeys there were the result of an ultimatum from my mama: ‘if you come in my house one more time, you’ll be in till this evening.’ Tired of me running in and out, Hattie Leak told me to make up my mind. Inside or outside. Heat or AC. More times than not, I chose the former. The librarians understood my dilemma, sometimes even including me on their lunch-run to Hoyles or Mr. C’s, less than a block away. But the main thing they gave me was access to books and the encouragement to read them. African American history and culture came alive in that welcoming space.”

After graduating from Myers Park High School in 1986, he started his college career at Campbell University where he majored in English and played on the basketball team.  He received his B.A. from Campbell University in 1990.  He then went on to earn an M.A. in English from the University of Delaware in 1992 and a Ph.D. in American Studies from Emory University in 1997.  He held a one-year postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Vermont. 

Dr. Leak joined UNC Charlotte in August 1998 as an Assistant Professor of English.  He was promoted to Associate Professor in 2004 and to Full Professor in 2014. During his years as an English professor, he taught a wide variety of courses on both the undergraduate and graduate levels.  Among the undergraduate courses he taught were Introduction to African American Literature, American Literature 1920-Present, and Black Family in Fiction and Film. The graduate courses he taught included Twentieth-Century American Novel, Race and Gender in American Literature, and Literature and Culture in the Back Arts Movement.

Over the course of his career at UNC Charlotte, Dr. Leak held numerous leadership positions, including the Director of the Center for the Study of the New South (2011-2015), the President of the Faculty (2015-2016), the Director of the American Studies Program (2020-2022), and the Interim Associate Dean of the Honors College (2022-2024).  

He also served as the Faculty Athletics Representative (FAR) to NCAA from 2013 to 2022.  In this role, he frequently interacted with the leadership team of the Athletics Department.  As a former college athlete, he was particularly attuned to the needs and concerns of student athletes. In commenting on this aspect of Dr. Leak’s career, Dr. Paula Eckard (a former Chair of the English Department) wrote, “I especially admired his work with UNC Charlotte Athletics and the many student athletes whose lives and academic careers he influenced. He helped them achieve a meaningful balance as they juggled the demands of the classroom and sports arenas.”

Throughout his career, Dr. Leak remained an active scholar. His first book was edited volume titled Rac(e)ing to the Right: Selected Essays of George S. Schuyler, which was published by the University of Tennessee Press in 2001. His second book, a monograph titled Racial Myths and Masculinity in African American Literature, was published by the University of Tennessee Press in 2005. In this book, he explored the portrayal of Black masculinity in several key literary works, including Frederick Douglass’s Narrative, Richard Wright’s Native Son, Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man, and Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon. His third book, a literary biography titled Visible Man: The Life of Henry Dumas, was released by the University of Georgia Press in 2014.  Jeffrey’s biography of Henry Dumas, a promising African American writer and poet who died in 1968 at the age of 33, is as much a study of the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s as it is an account of Dumas’s short life. Dr. Leak’s biography of Dumas received the top award for a nonfiction book from the Black Caucus of the American Library Association. Dr. Leak’s final publication was a chapter on Jimmy Carter’s An Hour Before Daylight, Carter’s autobiographical account of his childhood. This chapter appeared in The Literary Legacy of Jimmy Carter, which Rowman & Littlefield published in 2025.  

Dr. Leak left an indelible mark on the lives of everyone who had the privilege of knowing him. His dedication as a teacher, his outstanding record as a university and community leader, insightful scholarship, perhaps most of all, his basic human kindness will be remembered by all who knew him for many years to come.