Gary Younge
Gary Younge, Alfred Knobler Fellow at Type Media Center, is an award-winning columnist for the Guardian and The Nation and an acclaimed author. Born in Hitchin, Hertfordshire and raised in Stevenage near London, Younge graduated at 17 and went to teach English to refugees in Sudan before going on to study French and Russian at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh. Upon graduation he was awarded a scholarship from the Guardian to study newspaper journalism at City University in London in 1992. After a brief stint as a researcher on a televised international affairs magazine program World This Week, he joined the Guardian in 1994. In 1996, he was awarded the Lawrence Stern fellowship, which assigns a young British journalist to the Washington Post’s national desk each year.
His most recent book, Another Day in the Death of America: A Chronicle of Ten Short Lives (Nation Books 2016) was awarded a J. Anthony Lukas Prize. His first book, No Place Like Home: A Black Briton’s Journey Through the American South (Picador, 1999), was published to much acclaim and was released in the United States in 2002. His second book, Stranger in a Strange Land: Encounters in the Disunited States (New Press, 2006), was released on both sides of the Atlantic. His book on politics and identity, Who are We — and Should it Matter in the 21st Century?, was published in the UK in 2010. He is also the author of The Speech: The Story Behind Dr. Martin Luther King’s Dream.
In 2018 Younge was awarded feature writer of the year at the Society of Editors Press Awards in Britain and feature of the year at the Amnesty Media Awards for articles about white America and knife crime in Britain. In 2015 he was awarded the David Nyhan prize for political journalism from The Shrenstein Centre for Media, Politics and Public Policy from Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government.
He was awarded Newspaper Journalist of the Year by the Ethnic Minority Media Awards in the UK for three straight years 2002 to 2004. He was also nominated for Foreign Journalist of the Year in 2000 for his reporting from Zimbabwe. In 2009, he was awarded the prestigious James Cameron Prize for his reports on the election of Barack Obama which combined on the road reporting with personal insights. In 2017, he received the Aronson Career Achievement Award.
Younge has written for the Los Angeles Times, GQ Style, Cosmopolitan, Marie Claire and Hello! He has also presented several television documentaries, most recently Angry White and American.
Formerly the Belle Zeller visiting professor of public policy and social administration at Brooklyn College, CUNY, and currently a visiting professor at London South Bank University and an Honorary professor at Manchester University. He has four honorary degrees from British universities
Recent Work
In These Bleak Times, Imagine a World Where You Can Thrive
As I write my last column for the Guardian, my thoughts turn to the life lessons my mother taught me.
By Gary Younge in The Guardian.
Labour Won’t Win Again Until It Works Out Why It Lost
It’s not enough to blame Jeremy Corbyn, Brexit or the media.
By Gary Younge in The Guardian.
From Johnson’s Lies to Corbyn’s Promises – This Election Is About Trust
Labour needs to start tying Johnson’s untrustworthiness to Brexit. And stop promising new things.
By Gary Younge in The Guardian.
Streets on Fire
From Occupy Wall Street to Extinction Rebellion, this has been a combustible 10 years.
By Gary Younge in The Guardian.
After a Decade of Decay, Labour’s Manifesto Offers Us Hope for the Future
The party has painted a picture of a greener, fairer society – and reminded us of the values that made Corbyn party leader.
By Gary Younge in The Guardian.
The View from Stevenage
In the first of a three-part series, Gary Younge returns to his home town to see how the bellwether constituency views the election.
By Gary Younge in The Guardian.
A ‘No 10 Source’ Is the Voice of Power. Too Many Journalists Simply Parrot It
When the media uncritically repeats anonymous quotes, it becomes an enabler of the establishment it should challenge.
By Gary Younge in The Guardian.
Donald Trump’s Sanity Is not the Question. The Real Issue Is how he Got Into Office
To reduce his presidency to a frail mind is to ignore the fact he’s an emblem of free-market, white supremacist nationalism.
By Gary Younge in The Guardian.
At Its Best, Britain Can Rise to the Challenge of Racism. In the Case of Windrush, It Hasn’t
Oswald Dixon’s funeral showed this country’s capacity for solidarity. But the scandal of the hostile environment has still not been addressed.
By Gary Younge in The Guardian.
A Journey in Search of the American Left
The first in a five-day series where our writer gauges the mood of US progressives during a 10-day trip across the country.
By Gary Younge in the Guardian.
Another Day in the Death of America
A timely chronicle of what is now an ordinary day in America, where gun violence regularly takes the lives of children and teens, and leaves shattered families in its wake.
Stranger in a Strange Land: Encounters in the Disunited States
Black, opinionated, and with a distinctly working-class London accent, Gary Younge is not your typical foreign correspondent. Yet, in three years as The Guardian newspaper’s New York correspondent, Younge has acquired a transatlantic reputation as one of the most thoughtful commentators on contemporary America. Combining insight and panache, he has precisely captured the intricacies of a nation perplexed at its growing isolation from the rest of the world and often bitterly divided against itself.
No Place Like Home: A Black Briton's Journey Through the American South
In 1997 Gary Younge explored the American South by retracing the route of the original Freedom Riders of the 1960s. His road trip was a remarkable socio-cultural adventure for an outsider. He was British, journalistically curious, and black.
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