Origin Stories Caleb Gayle on Black Moses
Mar 4, 2026
Caleb Gayle, a historian, journalist, and Northeastern professor who writes narrative nonfiction about overlooked Black histories. He traces Edward McCabe through obsessive archival digging. He explains getting purposefully lost in research, choosing McCabe as the central figure, balancing narrative and theme, and treating beautiful prose as a responsibility.
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How A Plaque Sparked A Book
- Caleb Gayle first encountered Edward McCabe via a plaque in Guthrie, Oklahoma while pledging a Black fraternity and assumed McCabe was white.
- That initial misreading and later archival finds during Gayle's first book research opened a little-known world of Black-Oklahoma correspondence that hooked him into the story.
Get Lost In Archives To Find The Through Line
- Gayle purposely gets lost in research rather than immediately building timelines, letting emergent through-lines reveal themselves.
- He compiles a set of core questions and tests whether archival materials can answer them, treating archives like a conversation with a person he's never met.
Let Scenes Convey Theme Not Lectures
- Lean into narrative scenes and let story carry theme rather than over-explaining academic arguments early on.
- Gayle's editor told him atmospheric clarity in scenes will make the meaning land, so he rewrote to prioritize vivid episodes over heavy thematic exposition.
