William Leake Andrews (born September 27, 1946)[1] is an American Professor Emeritus of English at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill[2] and a scholar of early African-American literature.
[2] William Leake Andrews attended Davidson College in North Carolina, where he joined ROTC[4] and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1968.
[12] These editions, released in print and later digitized, facilitated the use of African-American authors in college courses, high school classrooms, and libraries.
[13] In 1997, Andrews accepted the E. Maynard Adams Professorship of English & Comparative Literature at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, which he held until his retirement in 2019.
[2] His work with Frances Foster and Trudier Harris on The Oxford Companion to African American Literature received accolades for its impact as a reference source.
[14][21] In 2019, he published a monograph, Slavery and Class in the American South: A Generation of Slave Narrative Testimony, 1840-1865 with Oxford University Press.
"[22] While he was Senior Associate Dean for Fine Arts and Humanities at UNC-CH, Andrews was selected to co-commission a 2012 report that identified systemic flaws in standards for courses during the University of North Carolina academic-athletic scandal.
The resulting report investigated the content and delivery of courses offered by the Department of African and Afro-American Studies between 2007 and 2011 summer sessions.
By tracing his genealogy, Andrews learned that his Virginian ancestor John Ferneyhough, Jr., joined a local organization in 1835 that opposed abolitionists.