From: jimruttshow8596
Economist and public intellectual Glenn Loury has openly discussed the significant challenges and pivotal turning points throughout his personal life, which have profoundly shaped his identity and career. His memoir, “Late Admissions: Confessions of a Black Conservative,” delves into these experiences with remarkable candor [02:54:57].
Early Life and Family Influences
Glenn Loury grew up on the South Side of Chicago in a pleasant residential neighborhood called Park Manor, characterized by modest single-family homes and small apartment buildings [06:19:14]. The neighborhood transitioned from all-white in the 1950s to nearly all-black by the early 1960s [07:18:00]. He was raised in his Aunt Eloise’s house, his mother’s older sister [06:53:00], [10:39:00]. Eloise was a formidable matriarch, a woman of respectability who was deeply involved in her church and served as a figure of authority and aspiration [11:03:00]. She even took in four foster children, Loury’s cousins, who became part of their bustling household [11:32:00].
Aunt Eloise provided a stabilizing influence, which was crucial given Loury’s mother’s “footloose and fancy-free” nature; his mother moved them five times before he finished fifth grade [12:06:00]. Loury’s family was part of the Great Migration, with his maternal grandparents moving from Mississippi to Chicago via Memphis after World War I [08:19:00]. His great aunts were impressive women who owned property and were involved in various ventures, including, as family lore suggests, making bathtub gin during Prohibition [09:21:00].
A significant early influence was his best friend, Woody, whose family lived across the alley [13:31:00]. Woody, despite being very fair-skinned, came from a family with black ancestry who had “passed” as white in an all-white neighborhood but remained when it became all-black [14:41:00]. Woody’s determination to embrace his black identity, particularly by marrying a dark-skinned black woman against his parents’ wishes, highlighted for Loury the complex and socially constructed nature of race and identity in America [15:36:00]. This early experience foreshadowed Loury’s reflections on race and identity throughout his life [01:01:49].
Youthful Mistakes and Redemption
As a teenager, Loury was influenced by his uncles, who were notorious womanizers [00:21:01]. Being younger and a “nerdy kid” in high school, he felt frustrated in his pursuit of sexual gratification [00:23:48]. This led to a “hairbrained scheme” where, at 17, he “borrowed” a car from a service station lot that could be started without a key, intending to take his girlfriend to her prom and “park and neck” [00:24:19]. He was arrested on his way to pick her up, still in his tuxedo, and his father had to bail him out [00:25:15]. Fortunately, he received a “slap on the wrist” for this youthful indiscretion [00:26:36].
Graduating high school as valedictorian at 16, Loury initially attended the Illinois Institute of Technology but “blew it” [00:27:17]. He partied, joy-rode, drank vodka, and smoked weed, neglecting his studies and disappointing his father [00:27:26]. This period culminated in his girlfriend, Charlene, becoming pregnant [00:28:37].
Realizing he needed to take responsibility, Loury got a well-paying job as a clerk at RR Donnelley and Sons, a major printing plant in Chicago [00:30:22]. He then embarked on a rigorous path of self-improvement, working full-time night shifts and taking a full course load at a community college during the day [00:33:44]. This “frenetic” schedule was driven by a desire to regain his father’s respect and his own self-respect after having “messed up” [00:32:45]. This intense period of dedication led to his “discovery” by a math teacher, an alumnus of Northwestern University, who recommended him to the university [00:35:25]. Northwestern offered him a full scholarship, marking a life-changing opportunity [00:35:50].
Marital Challenges and Separation (First Marriage)
At Northwestern and later during his PhD studies at MIT, Loury excelled academically, discovering the “life of the mind” and solidifying his path as a scholar [00:37:02]. However, his marriage to Charlene faced increasing strain [00:46:50]. While Loury was deeply immersed in the intellectual culture of MIT, Charlene, who had left high school at 16 to give birth to their first child, Lisa, and later had a second child, Tamara, struggled to adapt [00:47:05]. Their differing “growth trajectories” and the demands of their lives led to them growing apart [00:50:15]. The marriage ultimately ended when Loury lied to Charlene about having lunch with an old girlfriend, leading to a culminating argument and his moving out [00:48:53]. They never lived together again [00:50:00].
Personal Crisis and Recovery
Despite his academic success, Loury led a “double life” of philandering and drug use in the years that followed [01:24:12]. He describes this period as a way of dealing with cultural and personal challenges and “psychological challenges” stemming from “identity issues” and a fear of losing touch with his “roots” or “authenticity” [01:25:03]. He wanted to prove to himself that he hadn’t become one of the “Negro cognoscenti” who knew about fine dining but nothing about “how to cop weed in the projects” or pick up girls in bars [01:25:50].
This culminated in an affair with a young woman named Pamela Foster [01:26:43]. The relationship ended in a public scandal in May-June 1987 when Loury, in a fight, physically put her out of his apartment. She filed an assault charge against him, leading to his public humiliation, booking, and arraignment [01:28:49]. This incident, while the charges were eventually dropped, forced him to withdraw from a potential political appointment in the Reagan administration [01:29:24].
In the wake of this fiasco, Loury spiraled into cocaine addiction, which quickly escalated to smoking crack cocaine [01:37:03]. He describes using to escape feelings of depression and desolation [01:37:42]. As a full professor at Harvard, this created a “double flaming double life” [01:38:33]. He was eventually caught by Boston police in possession of marijuana and crack cocaine, leading to a second public scandal [01:38:44].
Loury entered treatment, but relapsed twice, requiring inpatient treatment at McLean Psychiatric Hospital and then a five-month stay in a halfway house in Irish Boston, run by a former police officer [01:38:52]. Finally, by Thanksgiving 1988, he was able to stop using cocaine [01:39:51]. This period of surviving traumatic events marked a profound turning point. Concurrently, he submitted himself to his Christian faith, becoming a devout Christian and a practicing member of a growing congregation [01:40:00].
Second Marriage and Later Challenges
Loury’s second wife, Linda Datcher Loury, also an economist, whom he married in 1983, played a crucial role in his recovery and subsequent life [00:57:16]. He openly admits she was “better than [he] deserved,” sticking with him through his philandering and drug addiction [01:44:18]. After his crash, their marriage was restored, and they had two sons, Glenn II and Nehemiah [01:41:20].
However, Loury admits that after his children grew older, he “went back to some of my double life ways” and resumed cultivating intimate relationships outside his marriage, even after professing his Christian faith [01:44:53]. Linda was later diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer and struggled with the disease for nearly a decade [01:45:23]. Loury reflects on discovering a self-help book on forgiveness among her belongings after her death, realizing she had been working on forgiving him for his infidelities [01:46:09]. Linda passed away at age 59, remembered as a distinguished economist, loving mother, and faithful wife [01:45:44].
Evolving Religious and Intellectual Views
While his Christian faith was instrumental in his recovery from addiction, Loury’s religious views continued to evolve. He now identifies as agnostic, stating he “cannot believe what I affirmed when I became a born-again Christian, which was that a man was raised from the dead and that he still lives” [01:42:19]. However, he expresses deep respect for the religious community he was part of and the human “seeking” to ground lives in meaningful understanding [01:42:50]. This quest for meaning, he acknowledges, addresses a void left by the decline of traditional faith, connecting to the broader meaning crisis in Western society [01:43:38].