Recently, while closed for the pandemic, the Schomburg Center developed a Black Liberation Reading List with 95 books and affiliated programs.īefore joining the Schomburg Center, Young was the Charles Howard Candler Professor of Creative Writing and English at Emory University in Atlanta where he taught for 11 years. In addition to raising $10 million in grants and donations and raising attendance by 40 percent, Young enhanced the entire profile of the Schomburg Center, developing the “Home to Harlem” initiative, the new Schomburg Center Literary Festival and continuing the popular Black Comic Book Festival. Founded in 1925 and named a national historic landmark, the Schomburg Center is a focal point of Harlem’s cultural life with extensive collections of art and artifacts, reference works, rare books and archives, photography and recordings.ĭuring his four-year tenure as director of the Schomburg Center, Young secured several high-profile acquisitions, including the Harlem-based archives of Harry Belafonte, James Baldwin, Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee, Sonny Rollins and Fred “Fab 5 Freddy” Brathwaite and the manuscript of The Autobiography of Malcolm X, including a once-lost chapter. In 2016, he became the director of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, a research division of the New York Public Library, and he is also currently the poetry editor at The New Yorker magazine. He has written 11 books of poetry, two works of nonfiction and is the editor of 10 other works, including African American Poetry: 250 Years of Struggle and Song published in October 2020. Young is best known as a poet, author, essayist and editor. Mellon Director of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture.

Eliot Elisofon Photographic Archives, African Art.

Brown by Kevin Young