Dr. Darius Young, Ph.D., Director of the Black Archives at Florida A&M University
Dr. Darius J. Young is a native of Detroit, Michigan and a two-time graduate of Florida A&M University. In 2011, Young completed his Ph.D. in 20th Century U.S. History from the University of Memphis. He is an author and historian of Black political movements during the 20th Century. His first book, Robert R. Church Jr. and the African American Political Struggle (University Press of Florida, 2019), won the C. Calvin Smith Book Award from the Southern Conference on African American Studies, Inc. His current book project, Freedom Now!: Black Detroit and the Revolutionary Year of 1963, chronicles the historic events that led to a rise in Black radical activism in the city during 1963. Dr. Young has published a series of articles, book chapters, and reviews that can be found in the African American Intellectual History Society’s Black Perspectives, The Journal of African American History, The Journal of Southern History, The Journal of American History, The Griot: The Journal of African American Studies, and the Florida Historical Quarterly.
Dr. Young is the recipient of several awards including the Southern Regional Education Board Doctoral Scholars Fellowship, the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History Research Fellowship, and the Benjamin L. Hooks Institute for Social Change Teaching Fellowship. He is the recipient of the FAMU Center for Disability Access and Research Faculty Pacesetter Award (2012), the Florida A&M Teacher of the Year Award (2013), the Florida A&M Advanced Teacher of the Year Award (2018), and the Southern Conference on African American Studies Member of the Year (2019). He is also a member of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History, the Southern Conference on African American Studies, Inc., the American Studies Association, the Organization of American Historians, and Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc.
Dr. Young will serve as lead point-person for the second week and help coordinate FAMU’s involvement, including as working director with Grant Administrator, Tammy Hamlet.