Clayborne Carson

Clayborne Carson (born June 15, 1944) is an acclaimed American history academic, educator, scholar, and author, a preeminent human rights expert historian, and an MLK Jr. Centennial Professor Emeritus at Stanford University as well as the founder of Stanford's Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute. Since 1985, at the request of Coretta Scott King, Carson has directed the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Papers Project, a long-term effort to edit and publish the papers of Martin Luther King Jr.

Early life and education

Carson was born on June 15, 1944, in Buffalo, New York; son of Clayborne and Louise Carson. He grew up near Los Alamos, New Mexico, where his father was a security guard for the Los Alamos National Laboratory. His was one of a very small number of African-American families in Los Alamos, and 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 1962, Carson attended the University of New Mexico for his first year on college during the 1962–1963 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, 1963, 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." He teaches and lectures about Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), the Black Panther Party, and other subjects related to the black struggle and civil rights. He has been a frequent guest on Pacifica Radio station KPFA in Berkeley, California, and has also appeared on programs like NPR's Fresh Air, the Tavis Smiley Show, the Charlie Rose Show, Good Morning America, and the CBS Evening News.

Carson has also written several books and articles regarding the Civil Rights Movement, and has made contributions to many more as well as documentaries, and interviews. His first book In Struggle: SNCC and the Black Awakening of the 1960s was awarded the Fredrick Jackson Turner Award in 1982. Carson was also the Historical Adviser for the film Freedom on My Mind, which in 1995 was nominated for an Oscar.

Carson retired from Stanford in 2020.

In 2021, Carson was nominated by President Joe Biden to serve as a member of the newly formed Civil Rights Cold Case Records Review Board.

Personal life

In 1967, Carson married Susan Ann Beyer, who at the time was a librarian. Author of introduction, Stride Toward Freedom: Montgomery Story. Beacon Press, 2010. Co-Author, This Light is Ours: Activist Photographs of the Civil Rights Movement. WW Norton & Co, 2009. Author of play Passages of Martin Luther King. 1993