Clayborne carson biography

Clayborne Carson

Clayborne Carson has devoted his professional life to the study of Martin Luther King, Jr. and the African-American freedom struggle. Since receiving his doctorate from UCLA in , Dr. Carson has taught at Stanford University, where he is now Martin Luther King, Jr., Centennial professor of history and Ronnie Lott founding director of the Martin Luther King, Jr., Research and Education Institute.

During his undergraduate years, Dr. Carson participated in civil rights and antiwar protests, and many of his writings reflect his experiences by stressing the importance of grassroots political activity within the African-American freedom struggle. Carson's publications include In Struggle: SNCC and the Black Awakening of the s (); Malcolm X: The FBI File (); African American Lives: The Struggle for Freedom (, co-author); and a memoir, Martin's Dream: My Journey and the Legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr. ().

In , the late Coretta Scott King invited Dr. Carson to direct a long-term project to edit and publish the papers of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Under Carson’s direction, the King Papers Project has produced seven volumes of an ongoing comprehensive edition of The Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr. In , Carson founded the Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute to endow and expand the work of the King Papers Project.

*Since the NEH was founded, the agency has awarded more than $ million to nearly three thousand projects on African American history and culture. Carson has been a recipient of NEH funding.

AFFILIATION: Stanford University

I am a historian who teaches at Stanford University, where I also serve as founding director of the Martin Luther King, Jr., Research and Education Institute. My latest book -- Martin's Dream: My Journey and the Legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr. -- is a memoir of my experiences during the half century since I attended the March on Washington. The late Mrs. Coretta Scott King selected me in to edit and publish the papers of her late husband and, since then, I have devoted most of my professional life to the study of Martin Luther King, Jr., and the movements King inspired. Under my direction, the King Papers Project, a component of the King Institute, has produced six volumes of a definitive, comprehensive edition of speeches, sermons, correspondence, publications, and unpublished writings. I have also edited numerous other books based on King's papers. A member of Stanford's department of history since receiving my doctorate from UCLA in , I have also served as visiting professor or visiting fellow at American University, the University of California, Berkeley, Duke University, Emory University, Harvard University, the Center for the Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford, the L'Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in Paris, and at Morehouse College in Atlanta, where during I was Martin Luther King, Jr. Distinguished Professor and Executive Director of that institution's King Collection. My writings reflect not only my research about King but also my undergraduate civil rights and antiwar activism, which led me to appreciate the importance of grassroots political activity as well as visionary leadership in the African-American freedom struggle. My first book, In Struggle: SNCC and the Black Awakening of the s, published in , is a study of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, the most dynamic and innovative civil rights organization. In Struggle won the Organization of American Historians' Frederick Ja

American historian (born )

Clayborne Carson (born June 15, ) is an American academic who was a professor of history at Stanford University and director of the Martin Luther King Jr., Research and Education Institute. Since , he has directed the Martin Luther King Papers Project, a long-term project to edit and publish the papers of Martin Luther King Jr.

Early life and education

Carson was born on June 15, , in Buffalo, New York; son of Clayborne and Louise Carson. He grew up near Los Alamos, New Mexico, where his was one of a small number of African-American families. He attributes his lifelong interest in the Civil Rights Movement to that experience. "I had this really strong curiosity about the black world, because in Los Alamos the black world was a very few families. When the civil rights movement started, I had this real fascination with it, and I wanted to meet the people in it."

After graduating from Los Alamos High School in , Carson attended the University of New Mexico for his first year on college during the – school year. At age 19, Carson met Stokely Carmichael at a national student conference in Indiana. Carmichael convinced him to attend the March on Washington For Jobs and Freedom as a member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC, pronounced "snick"). On August 28, , Carson was overwhelmed to find himself among hundreds of thousands of African Americans at the March. This was the first big thing Carson had done in contribution to the Civil Rights Movement. Recalling the March, at which Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his famous "I Have a Dream" speech at the Lincoln Memorial, Carson says, "I have a lot of vivid memories, but not of King's speech." What left the biggest impression, he says, were "the people I met there." The March was also the only time Carson had ever heard Dr. King speak in public.

It wasn't until after Carson had

My long career as a researcher and educator began on a secluded northern New Mexico plateau where the Manhattan Project had developed the atomic weapons that the United States used to end World War II and influence subsequent decades. My formative years were largely confined in this fenced town that the government built for the scientists and technicians of the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory. Even while confined within the fences surrounding the oft-called “secret city” of Los Alamos, however, I would develop an unquenchable curiosity about the outside world.

I would only gradually learn about the historical circumstances that enabled my family to become the first black residents of Los Alamos. I discovered that my grandfather, Edward Carson, was among the millions of black migrants who left the South to seek industrial jobs in northern cities, in his case leaving Tuscaloosa, Alabama, and traveling to Detroit where he secured a lasting job at Ford Motor Company. His son, Clayborne Carson, Sr., would grow up in a stable family, graduate from Northwestern High School, and even later take a few classes at Wayne State University. Dad’s initial employment featured summer work as a cabin steward paid $ a month helping tourists on the Lake Steamers sailing between Detroit and Canadian ports.

His life took an unexpected turn, however, when the United States entered World War II.

After the Army drafted him, tests determined that he was suitable for officer training which took place at Maxwell Air Base in Montgomery, Alabama. There he met and soon married Louise Lee, who had migrated from rural north Florida to Montgomery to find a job and (perhaps unexpectedly) a husband among the black soldiers training at the nearby military base. I never learned the details of their marriage, but Dad’s military records would inform me that when I was born in June , while Mom was staying with her relatives in Buffalo, he was in France commanding a black platoon in the ra