Author Kevin Young has been named the new director of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture, NPR reports.
Young, who currently leads The New York Public Library's Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture and serves as the New Yorker’s poetry editor, will take the reins of the museum in January.
Young is the author of 11 books of poetry and two works of nonfiction, Bunk: The Rise of Hoaxes, Humbug, Plagiarists, Phonies, Post-Facts, and Fake News and The Grey Album: On the Blackness of Blackness.
He told the New York Times that he’s interested in the role the museum can play in understanding the decadeslong—and ongoing—civil rights movement.
“People want to understand how we got there,” he said. “The museum is such a beacon of thinking about the way that African-American culture is at the center of the American experience, and you can’t tell the story of America without the story of African-Americans.”
Smithsonian Institution Secretary Lonnie G. Bunch III said Young’s new role “gives him a good place to do what he does best.”
“Kevin is someone who is steeped in African-American culture and history,” Bunch told the Times. “He is someone who is passionate about making that history accessible.”
Michael Schaub is a Texas-based journalist and regular contributor to NPR.
