The new director of the premier research center for African-American culture talks about his famous great-grandfather, coming of age during the Rodney King beating and his plans for the Harlem library.
The torch of leadership has been passed at one of the world's leading research libraries for information on people of African descent, and the new torchbearer is a young scholar with a pedigree steeped in black history. Khalil Gibran Muhammad, 38, has been chosen as the next director of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, a Harlem-based branch of the New York Public Library system, effective July 2011.
Muhammad's appointment was made by NYPL President Dr. Paul LeClerc, after the unanimous recommendation of a nine-member search committee co-chaired by library trustees Gordon J. Davis and Henry Louis Gates Jr. (who is also editor-in-chief of The Root). Muhammad succeeds Howard Dodson Jr., who will retire from the post after more than 25 years of leadership. Under Dodson's stewardship, the number of artifacts held by the library doubled to 10 million, and annual visitors tripled to 120,000.
A history professor at Indiana University specializing in the study of race relations and the impact of views held about black criminality, Muhammad received his Ph.D. in American history from Rutgers University in 2004, after a stint at Deloitte & Touche LLP. He spent two years as an Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow at the Vera Institute of Justice, a nonprofit organization for criminal-justice reform in New York, before joining the faculty of Indiana University.
A Chicago native, he is the great-grandson of Elijah Muhammad, who led the Nation of Islam during the mid-20th century.
The Root caught up with Dr. Muhammad this week to learn about his plans for the Schomburg.
Read the Full Interview @ The Root
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