Gary Younge

Gary Andrew Younge FAcSS (born January 1969)[1][2] is a British journalist, author, broadcaster and academic. He was editor-at-large for The Guardian newspaper, which he joined in 1993. In November 2019, it was announced that Younge had been appointed as professor of sociology at the University of Manchester and would be leaving his post at The Guardian, where he was a columnist for two decades, although he would continue to write for the newspaper.[3] He also writes for the New Statesman.

Gary Younge

FAcSS
Younge in 2014
BornGary Andrew Younge
January 1969 (age 52)
Stevenage, Hertfordshire, England
Occupation
  • Columnist
  • academic
  • author
  • broadcaster
Alma materHeriot-Watt University
City, University of London
Subject
Notable works
  1. No Place Like Home: A Black Briton's Journey Through the American South (2002)
  2. The Speech: The Story Behind Dr Martin Luther King Jr's Dream (2013)
  3. Another Day in the Death of America (2016)
SpouseTara Mack
Children2
Website
www.garyyounge.com

Younge is the author of the books No Place Like Home (2002), Stranger in a Strange Land (2006), Who Are We – And Should It Matter in the 21st Century? (2011), The Speech: The Story Behind Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s Dream (2013) and Another Day in the Death of America (2016).

Early years and education

Younge grew up in Stevenage, Hertfordshire, where he was born.[4] He is of Barbadian extraction.[5]

In 1984, aged 15, he briefly joined the Young Socialists, the youth section of the Workers Revolutionary Party, but left a year later after harassment from other party members, including allegedly being accused of working for MI5 and claims that he supported Fidel Castro only because of his ethnicity.[6] At the age of 17, Younge went to teach English in a United Nations Eritrean refugee school in Sudan with the educational charity Project Trust.[7]

In the late 1980s, he attended Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, where he studied French and Russian,[8] and was elected Vice President (Welfare) of the Student Association, a paid sabbatical post he held for a year.[9]

Career

In his final year at university he was awarded a bursary from The Guardian to study journalism at City University, and after a short internship at Yorkshire Television he joined The Guardian in 1993, and has since reported from all over Europe, Africa, the US and the Caribbean.[7]

His book, No Place like Home, in which he retraced the route of the civil rights Freedom Riders, was published in 1999 and was shortlisted for the Guardian First Book Award. His subsequent books are Stranger in a Strange Land: Encounters in the Disunited States (2006), Who Are We – And Should It Matter in the 21st Century? (2011), The Speech: The Story Behind Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s Dream (2013), and most recently Another Day in the Death of America: A Chronicle of Ten Short Lives (2016), a "deeply affecting" account of everyday fatalities among young people across the US,[10] which in 2017 won the J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize from Columbia Journalism School and the Nieman Foundation for Journalism.[7] Younge has also wrote a monthly column for The Nation, "Beneath the Radar".[11]

In the 2020 and 2021 Powerlist, Younge was listed in the Top 100 of the most influential people in the UK from African/African-Caribbean descent.[12] The same year saw Younge become professor of sociology at Manchester University.[3][13] In addition, Younge is on the 2020 list of 100 Great Black Britons.[14]

Personal life

In 2011, he relocated to Chicago, where he lived with his wife Tara Mack, his son Osceola and daughter Zora until returning to Britain in 2015.[7] In 2015, he announced his intention to move to Hackney,[15] and now lives in London with his wife and two children.[7] His brother Pat Younge is chief creative officer of BBC Vision.[16]

Awards and honours

Bibliography
  • No Place Like Home: A Black Briton's Journey Through the American South. Jackson, Mississippi: University Press of Mississippi. 2002. ISBN 9781578064885. OCLC 49226176.
  • Stranger in a Strange Land: Encounters in the Disunited States. New York: New Press. 2006. ISBN 9781595580689. OCLC 62421357.
  • Who Are We – And Should It Matter in the 21st Century?. New York: Nation Books. 2011. ISBN 9781568586601. OCLC 663952482.
  • The Speech: The Story Behind Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s Dream. Chicago: Haymarket Books. 2013. ISBN 9781608463220. OCLC 829740195.
  • Another Day in the Death of America: A Chronicle of Ten Short Lives. New York: Nation Books. 2016. ISBN 9781568589756. OCLC 945232454.

References
  1. "Index entry". FreeBMD. ONS. Retrieved 12 January 2018.
  2. "Gary YOUNGE - Personal Appointments". Companies House. Retrieved 12 January 2018.
  3. Younge, Gary (10 January 2020),"In these bleak times, imagine a world where you can thrive", The Guardian.
  4. Younge, Gary (16 June 2007). "Made in Stevenage". The Guardian. Retrieved 2 October 2016.
  5. "Another Day in the Death of America by Gary Younge review — an indictment of US gun culture". Financial Times. 30 September 2016.
  6. Younge, Gary (19 February 2000). "Memoirs of a teenage Trot". The Guardian. Retrieved 7 May 2016.
  7. "About", Gary Younge website.
  8. Donaldson, Brian (20 May 2010). "Gary Younge - Who Are We and Should it Matter in the 21st Century?". The List.
  9. "Special report: has university really changed?". The Guardian. 16 February 2007. Retrieved 7 May 2016.
  10. Busby, Margaret (25 September 2016), "Books: Another Day in the Death of America by Gary Younge" (review), The Sunday Times.
  11. "Gary Younge". The Nation. 22 March 2010. Retrieved 19 January 2021.
  12. Mills, Kelly-Ann (25 October 2019). "Raheem Sterling joins Meghan and Stormzy in top 100 most influential black Brits". Mirror. Retrieved 20 April 2020.
  13. "Gary Younge becomes a Professor at The University of Manchester". The University of Manchester. 5 November 2019. Retrieved 2 December 2020.
  14. "100 Great Black Britons – The Book". 2020.
  15. Younge, Gary (1 July 2015). "Farewell to America - Gary Younge". The Guardian.
  16. Media Guardian 100 2010: 98. Pat Younge, The Guardian, 12 July 2010.
  17. "Honorary Graduates" (PDF). Heriot-Watt University. Retrieved 16 September 2016.
  18. "Honorary Awards Ceremony", London South Bank University
  19. GNM press office, "Gary Younge wins prestigious James Cameron award", The Guardian, 7 October 2009.
  20. "Guardian's Gary Younge wins prestigious James Cameron prize", The Guardian, 8 October 2009.
  21. Sampson, Jessie, "Winners of The Comment Awards 2015 announced", Newsworks, 24 November 2015.
  22. "David Nyhan Prize for Political Journalism", Harvard Kennedy School.
  23. "About the Sandford Awards", The Sandford St Martin Trust.
  24. "Eighty-four leading social scientists conferred as Fellows of the Academy of Social Sciences". Academy of Social Sciences. 19 October 2016. Retrieved 5 August 2017.
  25. "Honorary Graduates". Cardiff University. Retrieved 21 July 2017.

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