“Having visited the museum myself with my family, I know what a powerful place it is, transforming visitors both in-person and online, and revealing the centrality of African American culture to the American experience. She’s written about anti-racism efforts at Woolly Mammoth Theatre, dinosaurs in the revamped fossil hall at the Smithsonian’s Natural History Museum, and the horrors of taking a digital detox. Recently, while closed for the pandemic, the Schomburg Center developed a Black Liberation Reading List with 95 books and affiliated programs. During his time at the helm, Spencer deftly helped the museum transition to a digital experience.

Rosa joined Washingtonian in 2016 after graduating from Mount Holyoke College.

Kevin joins NYPL from Emory University, where he was both Curator of the Raymond Danowski Poetry Library and Curator of Literary Collections at the newly named Rose Library. In February, Knopf published Blue Laws: Selected and Uncollected Poems 1995-2015.

Du Bois's copy of David Walker's Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World.

As a friend of the library for decades, it is with pride and gratitude that I read this news! In 2018, the museum launched the Smithsonian African American Film Festival, a multi-day festival celebrating African American visual culture and film. I am happy to report that Kevin Young will be joining NYPL as Director of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. For more The museum has more than 10,000 digitized objects and collection stories online. During 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. Highlights include artifacts belonging to Harriet Tubman, including her shawl and hymnal, Emmett Till’s casket, a slave cabin from Edisto Island and a Jim Crow-era railroad car. Kevin Young, director of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in New York City, will become the new director of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture, effective Jan. 11, 2021. “I cannot sufficiently thank my longtime friend and colleague, Spencer Crew, for stepping in as interim director,” Bunch said. He succeeds the founding director, Lonnie G. Bunch III, who is now the Secretary of the Smithsonian. In addition to Gordon and myself, the Committee members were Elizabeth Alexander, Kwame Anthony Appiah, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Raymond McGuire, Arva Rice, and Aysha E. Schomburg. He simultaneously held the Charles Howard Candler Professorship of Creative Writing and English. patron, not necessarily those of The New York Public Library. check your watch, it's 2016. Across his writing, his curatorial work, and his teaching, Kevin has mapped a deeply textured account of American life.

The National Museum of African American History & Culture has named its new director: Kevin Young, a writer, poet, and editor who currently runs the New York Public Library’s Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.Young will succeed founding director Lonnie Bunch, who was promoted to Secretary of the Smithsonian last November.. Director, Schomburg Center: [email protected]: Sonia Richards Assistant to the Director: [email protected]. Matthews Chief of Staff: [email protected]: Michelle Commander Associate Director, Lapidus Center for the Historical Analysis of Transatlantic Slavery: [email protected]: Novella Ford In 1901, Andrew Carnegie tentatively agreed to donate $5.2 million (equivalent to $159,806,400 in 2019) to construct 65 branch libraries in New York City, with the requirement that the City provide the land and maintain the buildings once construction was complete.

He is also the editor of nine volumes, including The Art of Losing: Poems of Grief & Healing (Bloomsbury, 2010) and the anthology to be published this fall, African American Poetry: 250 Years of Struggle & Song (Library of America, 2020). Read our guide to using SimplyE. McKim, Mead & White were chosen as the architects and Charles Follen M… The accomplished scholar has written 13 books of poetry, essays, and cultural criticism, and he currently edits poetry at The New Yorker. Later in 1901 Carnegie formally signed a contract with the City of New York to transfer his donation to the city to then allow it to justify purchasing the land to house the libraries. 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. She covers arts and culture for the magazine. Kevin Young, director of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in New York City, will become the new director of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture, effective Jan. 11, 2021. His syncretic accounts of American social, musical, and cultural history are notable both for the breadth of their vision and for the vertiginous pleasures they afford. stop insulting our intelligence. The Smithsonian and I are forever grateful for his brilliant contributions.”, “I look forward to directing the National Museum of African American History and Culture in this next phase of leadership, after its founding, opening and dynamic exhibitions and events,” Young said. calling people from African descent black is like calling people from Asian descent yellow. Young will succeed founding director Lonnie Bunch, who was promoted to Secretary of the Smithsonian last November. The museum opened with 12 inaugural exhibitions, and has since presented four temporary exhibits, including the popular “Watching Oprah: The Oprah Winfrey Show and American Culture” and, most recently, “We Return Fighting: The African American Experience in World War I.” The museum has a collection of more than 37,000 objects, with about 3,000 on display. While closed beginning March 14 for the pandemic, the museum continued to publish online educational content, including the “Talking About Race” website, online Juneteenth program, virtual Community Day and March on Washington digital resources. Young is best known as a poet, author, essayist and editor. Among his 11 books of poetry are Most Way Home: Poems (William Morrow, 1995), Jelly Roll: A Blues (Knopf, 2003), To Repel Ghosts (Knopf, 2005), To Repel Ghosts: remix (Knopf, 2005), Blue Laws: Selected & Uncollected Poems 1995–2015 (Knopf, 2016) and Brown: Poems (Knopf, 2018). Need more help? Our most popular stories of the week, sent every Saturday. Kevin will bring an exciting mix of scholarship, technological savvy and bold vision that builds on the foundational work of the many people who built the museum,” Bunch said. 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. The National Museum of African American History & Culture has named its new director: Kevin Young, a writer, poet, and editor who currently runs the New York Public Library’s Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. In December 2015, it was announced that Muhammad would leave his position at the Schomburg to teach at Harvard University. The long-awaited museum continues to attract an unparalleled level of public interest and has welcomed more than 7 million visitors since opening. Photo: Melanie Dunea/CPi. Before 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. “We enticed him to take a break from teaching to curate the inaugural ‘Defending Freedom, Defining Freedom’ exhibition that is central to the museum’s mission. We'll help you live your best #DCLIFE every day. He succeeds the founding director, Lonnie G. Bunch III, who is now the Secretary of the Smithsonian. With your library card, it's easier than ever to choose from more than 300,000 e-books on SimplyE, The New York Public Library's free e-reader app. In its first four years, NMAAHC offered a robust calendar of public programs and event series, including film screenings, movie premieres, book tours, musical performances and panel discussions. He has produced a wide range of poetry and cultural criticism, including two non-fiction books, Bunk: The Rise of Hoaxes, Humbug, Plagiarists, Phonies, Post-Facts and Fake News (Graywolf Press, 2017), longlisted for the National Book Award, and The Grey Album: On the Blackness of Blackness (Graywolf Press, 2012), which won the PEN Open Book Award and was named a New York Times Notable Book. Under Kevin's leadership, the Danowski Poetry Library and the Rose Library have both enjoyed remarkable success, increasing their holdings, expanding public programming and access, mounting innovative exhibitions, organizing conferences and fellowship competitions, and enhancing their digital presence.