Dr. Frank L. Roberts (GAL ’04, TSOA ’05, TSOA ’20, GAL Faculty)
Help in us congratulating Dr. Frank L. Roberts (Ph.D. '20) on being named one of the 2021 Changemakers of the Year by the NYU Alumni Association Board!
“I would not be who I am today politically or intellectually had it not been for NYU,” says NYU faculty member Dr. Frank Leon Roberts. The son of formerly incarcerated parents, his journey from academia to the “streets” of political organizing was informed by coming of age during the height of the crack cocaine pandemic. “NYU gave me a language to describe phenomena—intersectionality, structural inequality, state-sanctioned violence—that I understood instinctually but had not been able to fully articulate with intellectual clarity.” It was there that Dr. Roberts began a life of political activism and achieved significant milestones: from becoming a campus organizer to a nonprofit founder to the creator of the groundbreaking Black Lives Matter Syllabus.
Dr. Roberts founded the Black Lives Matter (BLM) Syllabus in 2015, a nationally-acclaimed, public educational curriculum that “encourages people to become better organizers by becoming better readers.” His course “Black Lives Matter: Race, Resistance, and Popular Protest” is widely recognized as the first college class to focus solely on the BLM movement. It was also one of the first courses to invite BLM organizers to train students in anti-racist organizing techniques. “When you look at the history of Black radical organizing, college students have always played a key role in social justice movements,” says Dr. Roberts. “Continuing that tradition is really what we wanted to do with the class.” Six years later, the Black Lives Matter Syllabus continues to be used in dozens of colleges and universities across the country.
Chosen by the NYU Alumni Association Board from crowdsourced nominations, these alumni award recipients are the best of the best: entrepreneurs and visionaries who save lives, reduce suffering, and bring hope to the marginalized. Ambition for private gain is one thing. But ambition with the public good in mind? That’s how you make change.
Congratulations Dr. Roberts!