Gerald Lyn Early was born April 21, 1952, in Philadelphia, PA; son of Henry Early and Florence Fernandez Oglesby. His father (a baker) died when Early was nine months old, leaving his mother (a preschool teacher) to rear him and his two sisters on her own. Living in a poor area of the city, Early grew up befriending members of the Fifth and the South Street gangs, though he never became a member himself. Instead he focused on scholarly pursuits, graduating cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania in 1974. During Early's undergraduate years, he was introduced to the writings of Amiri Baraka and later credited the poet and playwright with influencing his own work. Early developed much of his writing style through involvement with the university newspaper. Ironically, his first major piece was a journalistic foray into the gang-related murder of a cousin.

After earning his B.A., Early returned to Philadelphia, where he became employed by the city government. He also spent six months monitoring gang activities through the Crisis Intervention Network before resuming his course work at Cornell University, where he eventually earned a doctorate in English literature in 1982. Early landed his first teaching job as an assistant professor of black studies at St. Louis's Washington University in 1982. He would steadily rise to a full professorship in both the English and the renamed African and Afro-American studies departments by 1990.

On August 27, 1977, Early married Ida Haynes, a college administrator, They have two children, Linnet Kristen Haynes Early and Rosalind Lenora Haynes Early.

Early won the 1994 National Book Critics Circle Award for essay collection The Culture of Bruising: Essays on Prizefighting, Literature, and Modern American Culture.

He has been nominated for the Grammy Award Best Album Notes twice in 2001 for Yes I Can! The Sammy Davis Jr. Story and in 2002 for Rhapsodies in Black: Music and Words From The Harlem Renaissance.

On September 5, 2007, Professor Early was honored by Washington University with the unveiling of a portrait painted by Jamie Adams which hangs in the Journals Reading Room of the university's Olin Library.