McBride is an academic activist writing about LGBT issues, especially within an African-American context.

Dwight A. McBride was born in Honea Path, SC, in 1967 to parents, James W. McBride, Jr. and Bettye Jean McBride. He has one younger sister, Makelia McBride-Hampton, who is a registered nurse. He spent most of his childhood in neighboring Belton, SC, where he began his school years. He graduated from Belton-Honea Path High School in 1986.

Today McBride is Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and Professor of
African American Studies, English, and Gender & Women’s Studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago. His published essays are in the areas of race theory and black queer studies. He is author of Impossible Witnesses: Truth, Abolitionism, and Slave Testimony ( 2001, NYU Press ) and Why I Hate Abercrombie and Fitch: Essays on Race and Sexuality ( 2005, NYU Press ) , both of which were nominated for the Hurston-Wright Legacy Award. The latter was also a nominee for the Lambda Literary Award. He is the editor of James Baldwin Now ( 1999, NYU Press ) , co-editor of a special issue of the journal Callaloo titled “Plum Nelly: New Essays in Black Queer Studies” ( Winter 2000 ) , co-editor of the Lambda Literary Award-winning fiction anthology Black Like Us: A Century of Lesbian, Gay, and Bi-Sexual African American Fiction ( 2002, Cleis
Press ) , and co-editor of A Melvin Dixon Critical Reader ( 2006, U Mississippi P ) .

He received his bachelor’s degree in English from Princeton University ( with a certificate in African American Studies ) , and both his M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of California, Los Angeles. He has taught previously on the faculties of the University of Pittsburgh, and Northwestern University ( where he was the Leon Forrest Professor of African American Studies ) . He currently lives in Chicago, IL and Saugatuck, MI.