Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor is an academic who works in the Department of African American Studies at Princeton University. ¹ She is a champion of the left-of-center concept of equity and is a historian of radical activism and radical political movements in the United States. ²

She is the author of a number of books on left-of-center racial advocacy and was awarded a MacArthur Foundation fellowship. ^{3 4}

Background

Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor is the Hughes-Rogers Professor of African-American Studies at Princeton University. ⁵ She is a champion of the left-of-center concept of equity and is a historian of radical activism and radical political movements in the United States. ⁶

Writings

Taylor is the author of From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation (2016), which won the Lannan Cultural Freedom Award for an Especially Notable Book, and Race for Profit: How Banks and the Real Estate Industry Undermined Black Homeownership (2019). ⁷

She edited the book How We Get Free: Black Feminism and the Combahee River Collective, which won the Lambda Literary Award for LGBTQ nonfiction in 2018. ⁸

Taylor frequently contributes articles to The New Yorker. ⁹ In January 2024, she wrote a piece on the controversy surrounding then-president of Harvard University Claudine Gay, who resigned after alleged acts of plagiarism resurfaced after she was put into the spotlight regarding her lenient policies toward antisemitic hate speech on campus, including calls for the genocide of Jewish people. In her piece, Taylor argues that Gay was targeted due to racist opposition to left-of-center diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies, rather than her alleged antisemitism or plagiarism. ¹⁰

Taylor is also a contributing opinion writer for the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Boston Review, the Paris Review, The Guardian, The Nation, and Jacobin. ¹¹

Public Recognition

Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor was listed as one of the 100 “most influential African Americans” by The Root in 2016. She was named one of the top “change makers” in the U.S. by Essence magazine in 2018. ¹²

In 2021, she was awarded a “Genius” Fellowship from the MacArthur Foundation. She also received a Guggenheim Fellowship that year. ¹³

In December 2021, Taylor was among the inaugural cohort of recipients of the Freedom Scholar prize, an award organized by the Marguerite Casey Foundation and the Group Health Foundation (now Inatai Foundation) to foster the work of left-wing social scholars. She was awarded $250,000, as were academics Darrick Hamilton, Charlene Carruthers, and nine others, all of whom published works on left-wing racial theories and post-colonialism. The official press release stated: “The Freedom Scholars are leading research in critical fields including abolitionist, Black, feminist, queer, radical, and anti-colonialist studies. The annual award, established in 2020, counters the limited financial resources and research constraints frequently faced by scholars whose work supports social movements.” ¹⁴

1. “Taylor Keeanga-Yamahtta.” The New Yorker. Accessed March 24, 2024. https://www.newyorker.com/contributors/keeanga-yamahtta-taylor.
2. “Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor.” Princeton. Accessed March 24, 2024. https://aas.princeton.edu/people/keeanga-yamahtta-taylor.
3. “Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor.” Princeton. Accessed March 24, 2024. https://aas.princeton.edu/people/keeanga-yamahtta-taylor.
4. “Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor.” Princeton. Accessed March 24, 2024. https://aas.princeton.edu/people/keeanga-yamahtta-taylor.
5. “Taylor Keeanga-Yamahtta.” The New Yorker. Accessed March 24, 2024. https://www.newyorker.com/contributors/keeanga-yamahtta-taylor.
6. Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor.” Princeton. Accessed March 24, 2024. https://aas.princeton.edu/people/keeanga-yamahtta-taylor.
7. “Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor.” Princeton. Accessed March 24, 2024. https://aas.princeton.edu/people/keeanga-yamahtta-taylor.
8. “Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor.” Princeton. Accessed March 24, 2024. https://aas.princeton.edu/people/keeanga-yamahtta-taylor.
9. “Taylor Keeanga-Yamahtta.” The New Yorker. Accessed March 24, 2024. https://www.newyorker.com/contributors/keeanga-yamahtta-taylor.
10. Taylor, Keeanga-Yamahtta. “The Campaign Against DEI.” The New Yorker, January 22, 2024. Accessed March 24, 2024. https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/the-campaign-against-dei.
11. “Taylor Keeanga-Yamahtta.” The New Yorker. Accessed March 24, 2024. https://www.newyorker.com/contributors/keeanga-yamahtta-taylor.
12. “Bio.” Keeanga-Yamahtta Talyor.com. Accessed March 24, 2024. https://www.keeangataylor.com/bio.html.
13. “Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor.” Princeton. Accessed March 24, 2024. https://aas.princeton.edu/people/keeanga-yamahtta-taylor.
14. “Marguerite Casey Foundation and Group Health Foundation Award $1.5 Million to 2021 Freedom Scholars.” Marguerite Casey Foundation, December 6, 2021. Accessed March 24, 2024. https://www.caseygrants.org/recent-news/marguerite-casey-foundation-and-group-health-foundation-award-1-5-million-to-2021-freedom-scholars.