Alford A. Young, Jr., is University Diversity and Social Transformation Professor,  Arthur F. Thurnau Professor and Edgar G. Epps Collegiate Professor of Sociology, Professor of Afroamerican and African Studies, and Professor of Public Policy at the University of Michigan. He is also the Associate Director of the U-M Center for Social Solutions. 


Young has spent much of his professional career asking people to reconsider what they think they know about others. As a renowned sociologist, he has challenged the assumptions Americans make about race, poverty, dignity, and the lives of Black men and boys. But the questions that drive his scholarship are not merely academic. They emerge from a life spent navigating different worlds: a close-knit Black and Latino neighborhood in East Harlem, predominantly white Catholic schools, the demanding intellectual culture of elite universities, and communities whose experiences are too often interpreted and documented by people who have never taken the time to understand them. This journey solidified in him a deep understanding of the questions required to meaningfully analyze the spectrum of the human condition, serving especially vital during one of the most polarizing eras in American history. As described by Earl Lewis, President Emeritus of The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Distinguished University Professor, and Center for Social Solutions Founder at the University of Michigan, “Professor Alford Young, Jr. assumes the presidency of the American Sociological Association at a very propitious time. He has spent a three-decade career building bridges between the academy and the communities that inform the work of academics. In a fractious world governed by the politics of separation, Al’s approach to listening to all and then taking solutions through the requisite channels to redound to the association and its members as well as society.”


Forging an Intellectual Identity

All of Young’s foundational pillars can be traced directly back to his formative years in New York City. This can be seen by his enduring love for New York style pizza, the occasional stop for a hot dog on the corner, and, perhaps his most longstanding commitment, in the half-century he’s spent as a loyal fan of the New York City Knicks. This foundation can also be seen in his career trajectory. Sociology was not Young’s first choice of career and he initially imagined becoming a civil rights attorney. His early interests in civic engagement and Black history were stoked by his parents who did not, and could not, shy away from political conversations around the dinner table as a Black family in 70’s Harlem. Participating in the Archbishop Leadership Program, a leadership program for adolescent African American boys in New York City, became a pivotal experience of his adolescence. The program compelled its members to strive for excellence, not just academic excellence, but leadership in the community and personal development. This would be his introduction to coalition building and the sociology of Black folks through the works of Malcolm X and Richard Wright. “The Project shaped my life,” reflects Young. “Everything about who I am politically, my leadership commitments, all came out of that program.” His environment and experiences growing up empowered him to believe that the law could be a vehicle for social change, and his early ambitions reflected a desire to challenge racial injustice directly.  However, the course of Young’s career would be forever changed by a mentor at Wesleyan University, where he began his undergraduate education. Young originally sought out Professor Jerry Watts, a maverick scholar who held appointments in Government, English Literature, and Sociology throughout his career, to get acquainted with Black faculty on campus. Young left their conversations with a new understanding of the role research plays in informing and shaping American society.

Young realized that the research itself was what excited him most and an internship with the NAACP Legal Defense Fund reinforced the distinction. While he still valued the importance of civil rights law, he became increasingly convinced that research could reveal things about racial inequality that public debate, conventional wisdom, and policymakers often missed. After wrapping up his B.A. in Sociology-Psychology and Afro-American Studies, Young decided to pursue his M.A. and Ph.D. in Sociology at the University of Chicago while simultaneously committing to continue a new career in academia. 


Race, Identity, and Community in Academia

Young's research on Black men and urban poverty is often discussed in terms of its contribution to sociology. He has challenged the tendency to treat poverty as if it were a defining characteristic of everyone who lives in a lower-income neighborhood. Communities contain people with different resources, experiences and aspirations. Similarly, Black men cannot be understood as a uniform population with a single culture or worldview. ”I think at heart Al Young is an empiricist,” says Ruben A. Buford May, Professor and Department Head of Sociology at the University of Illinois and President of the Association of Black Sociologists. “He believes that seeking a holistic understanding of our problems will help provide the appropriate answers. Sociological methodologies have been an important means through which Al has garnered that knowledge.

As he entered academic life, Young became increasingly uncomfortable with research and media narratives that treated the behavior of marginalized Black men as straightforward evidence of defective values or poor character. He saw a gap between the complexity of the people he knew and the simplicity of the explanations often offered about them. That gap became the foundation of his work. 

Young began his appointment at the University of Michigan as an assistant professor of sociology in 1996 and quickly rose up to be one of the leading sociologists, not only on campus but in the nation, eventually becoming the Chair of the Department of Sociology. His successor as Chair, Elizabeth A. Armstrong, remarks, “Al's scholarship, teaching, and service has been oriented around deeply understanding and improving the experiences of African Americans in the community and in higher education. This mission infuses all of his work. One profound way he has influenced the field is through serving on 106 completed dissertation committees, with another 8 in progress." In one of his most influential works, The Minds of Marginalized Black Men: Making Sense of Mobility, Opportunity and Future Life Chances, Young examined the experiences and worldviews of 26 young Black men living in Chicago. The project reflected a central principle of his approach: people should be understood through their own accounts of their lives, not simply through categories imposed on them by researchers, policymakers or the public. Young was interested in the relationship between structural conditions and individual interpretation. How do people make sense of limited opportunities? How do their experiences influence what they believe is possible? How do family relationships, social networks and public narratives shape their expectations? These questions resist easy answers. People who face similar circumstances may interpret them differently, and their perspectives may reflect experiences that are not immediately visible to an outside observer. Young’s research strives to make those distinctions visible. 

His engagement with these questions has continued across a broader body of work, including From the Edge of the Ghetto: African Americans and the World of Work, which investigated how low-income Black workers conceptualize the labor market, define "good" jobs, evaluate their own skills, and try to bridge the two. Over roughly two decades, his research has involved close to 500 Black men across 10 cities, reflecting a sustained effort to discern how people interpret work, social mobility and the possibilities available to them. However, Young never allowed the scale of his work or his responsibilities as a leader to get in the way of his direct involvement with his mentees and research. “In graduate school, I admired Al’s respect for history,” reflects Mary Pattillo, Professor of Sociology and Black Studies at Northwestern University. “He studied the great Black thinkers and their professional and intellectual paths. He modeled how to command authority as a graduate student and how to cultivate a voice that merited being in conversation with our professors. Since then, I have known Al to always be in service to others. Even when he wears titles of Chair, Director, and President, he is always willing to do the work and build together.” Along with his graduate students, Young serves as a mentor to campus faculty in his capacity as faculty director of the Anti-Racism Collaborative at the National Center for Institutional Diversity. 

Alongside a career in a rapidly expanding profession, Young made sure to find time for his own personal community. He planted roots in Ann Arbor with his wife, and sociologist of education, Dr. Carla O’Connor and their two boys. Young would spend a total of ten years coaching his sons and their peers in youth basketball at the Ann Arbor YMCA, creating some of Young’s most cherished memories. 

His efforts as a scholar, mentor, and community leader were recognized in the fall of 2023, as the University of Michigan awarded Young the University Diversity and Social Transformation Professorship for his contributions to diversity, equity, and inclusion at the institution.

 

Challenging the Stories Society Tells About Black Men

Young has spent much of his life moving between Black social spaces and predominantly white institutions, sharpening his focus in race relations and race theory. Throughout his different roles as a student, researcher, and mentor, he has kept a close view of how racial identity can be understood differently depending on class, education, geography, and social relationships. He has carved out spaces for scholars researching Black men and boys as the founder of The Scholars Network on Masculinity and the Wellbeing of African American Men and former president of the Association of Black Sociologists. Through the Scholars Network he was charged with building and giving definition to an interdisciplinary community of scholars, including humanistic and social sciences, to promote comprehensive inquiry into the cultural analysis of African American males and Black masculinity. The group tackles expansive subjects such as gender fluidity, fatherhood, emotional healing, often sharing the discussions with students across a multitude of disciplines. By establishing the network, he has opened the door for three waves of scholars to join in this work. Once elected the president of the Association of Black Sociologists in 2022, Young continued his methodology to realign the core mission of supporting and cultivating scores of Black social scientists and Black community activists in service of intellectual and social organizing for the betterment of Black folks’ lives at all intersections. May, who served with Young on the executive committee, stated, “When working with him I always felt that I was heard and that he thoroughly considered the options before making decisions. He was responsible for putting our organization onto much surer footing.” This service has already extended to the American Sociologists Association during his time as Chair of the ASA Section on Race and Ethnic Minorities. The conversations and insight gained from his role leading one of ASA’s largest sections has informed his decisions as a sociologist and offered a clearer vision of the future of the field. Young left a notable impression on his colleague, University of Maryland Professor of Sociology Rashawn Ray, during their shared time on these professional committees. “Dr. Young is masterful at handling difficult conversations and projects. I always found him to listen first, focus on solutions, and ensure that marginalized voices elevated and different perspectives were centered.”

Across his life and career, Young has returned to a deceptively simple principle: understanding people requires taking their experiences seriously. He holds this principle in his current work, examining the dignity of marginalized workers in an increasingly automated society. This includes a five-year study of Black essential workers during the COVID-19 pandemic, lending a platform to voices that were silenced while concurrently being lauded as heroes. 

 

Realizing the Promise of Sociology In Turbulent Times 

For the 2027 ASA annual meeting, Young has chosen to address the heightened threats facing sociology head-on and galvanize the field to bridge the gaps that exist both within the field and the public’s perception of the field. In his own words “These threats include politically motivated cuts to social science research funding. They also include the surveillance of sociology’s curricular content. So charged is the current climate that some sociologists now question whether they can deploy the discipline’s core concepts at all.” Internal disciplinary fragmentation due to the vast array of focus areas for sociologists may also lead to a disconnect and lack of coherence when facing seemingly insurmountable challenges. The meeting will seek to explore unrealized opportunities for sociologists to consider and determine the best mechanisms for applying sociological knowledge across disciplines and methodologies. 
“To deliver most fully on this agenda, we will investigate whether disciplinary fragmentation limits our collective capacity to respond with clarity and purpose to defend – and ultimately advance – the value of sociological knowledge for the common good.”

At the gate of this daunting process, comfort can be found in the words of one of Young’s first graduate students and now Associate Professor and Vice Dean of Workplace Culture and Professional Excellence at Rutgers University, Zaire Dinzey-Flores, who shared, “In a time of deep generational, political, and social divide, there is no one better than Al to hold and acknowledge the tensions, center segmented realities, and forge connections for an open, just, and inclusive path forward.”