Khalil Gibran Muhammad

Khalil Gibran Muhammad, Ph.D.^[1] is the Director of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, a Harlem-based branch of the New York Public Library system and one of the world’s leading research facilities dedicated to the history of the African diaspora. Prior to joining the Schomburg Center in 2011, Muhammad was an associate professor of history at Indiana University.^[2]

Crain's New York Business^[3] chose Muhammad as one of its 40 under Forty class of 2011 honorees. In 2012, he was also listed as #49 on the Root 100.^[4] He regularly appears on the Melissa Harris-Perry show.

Background

Muhammad is a native of South Side, Chicago. He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1993 with a bachelor's degree in economics. During college, Muhammad became a member of the Delta Eta chapter of Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity.^[5] After graduation, he worked as a public accountant at the financial advisory firm Deloitte & Touche LLP until entering graduate school.

In 2004, Muhammad received his Ph.D. in American history from Rutgers University, specializing in 20th century and African-American history. He spent two years as an Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow at the Vera Institute of Justice, a nonprofit criminal justice reform agency in New York City, before joining the faculty of Indiana University. Muhammad also holds an honorary doctorate from The New School.

Muhammad is the great-grandson of Elijah Muhammad,^[6] and son of Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times photographer Ozier Muhammad.^[7]

Publications

Muhammad is the author of The Condemnation of Blackness: Race, Crime, and the Making of Modern Urban America, published by Harvard University Press.^[8] The Condemnation of Blackness won the American Studies Association John Hope Franklin Publication Prize,^[9] which is awarded annually to the best published book in American studies.^[10] The book is notable for its lengthy discussion of the role of the social sciences - and of black and white social scientists - in shaping and sanctifying racial "data," with terrible consequences for African Americans.

As an academic, Muhammad is at the forefront of scholarship on the enduring link between race and crime that has shaped and limited opportunities for African Americans. His research interests include the racial politics of criminal law, policing, juvenile delinquency and punishment, as well as immigration and social reform.^[11] Dr. Muhammad is now working on his second book, Disappearing Acts: The End of White Criminality in the Age of Jim Crow,^[12] which traces the historical roots of the changing demographics of crime and punishment so evident today. His work has been featured in the New York Times, The Nation, New Yorker, Washington Post, The Guardian, and Atlanta Journal Constitution, as well as on Moyers & Company, MSNBC, C-SPAN, NPR, Pacifica Radio, and Radio One.^[13]

Professional affiliations

Muhammad has been an associate editor of The Journal of American History,^[14] and was recently appointed to the editorial board of Transition Magazine, published by the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute at Harvard University. He has served or currently serves on the New York City Council's Task Force to Combat Gun Violence, the United States National Research Council's Committee on the Causes and Consequences of High Rates of Incarceration, and the board of the Barnes Foundation.

References

External links

• Appearances on C-SPAN
• Washington Post Op-Ed
• Tavis Smiley Interview
• TheRoot.com Interview
• DNAInfo.com Interview