Caleb Gayle

Caleb J. Gayle writes about the impact of history on race and identity. His writing has been recognized by the Best American Essays anthology, the Matthew Power Literary Reporting Award, the PEN American Writing for Justice Fellowship, the Center for Fiction Emerging Writers Fellowship, the New America Fellowship, among others. After completing his undergraduate studies at the University of Oklahoma as a Truman Scholar, and Oxford as a Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar, Gayle worked for a social enterprise that creates customized programs to empower women entrepreneurs from marginalized areas in Mexico and as program officer at the George Kaiser Family Foundation. A former consultant at Boston Consulting Group, Gayle completed both his MBA and master’s degree in public policy from Harvard Business School and Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government as a Paul & Daisy Soros Fellow for New Americans. A former US News Fellow at The Guardian, he has also been named as a New America Fellow and a Demos Emerging Voices Fellow. Gayle's writing has been featured or forthcoming in The New York Times, The Guardian, the Three Penny Review, the New York Times Magazine, the Atlantic, the Harvard Review, Pacific Standard, the New Republic, The Boston Globe, Los Angeles Review of Books, the Root, the Daily Beast, and more. Gayle's debut book We Refuse to Forget: A True Story of Black Creeks, American Identity, and Power became a finalist for the Oklahoma Book Award, the Massachusetts Book Award, the Hurston Wright Foundation Legacy Award for Historical Nonfiction, and is a landmark work of un(der)told history sure to reshape our understanding of identity, race, and belonging.

In addition to writing, Gayle serves as a Lecturer at the Colin Powell School for Civic and Global Leadership at the City College of New York and a Visiting Scholar at the Arthur Carter Journalism Institute at NYU. Caleb is a Fellow at the Harvard University Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, and a Visiting Scholar at the Arthur Carter Journalism Institute at NYU. He is also a Visiting Professor for Nonfiction at Columbia University's School of Arts. A first generation American, Gayle comes from a family originally from Jamaica, though born in New York and raised in Oklahoma. In his writing and at speaking engagements, he draws on his personal history and the immigrant experience and historical context to explore the modern cultural and political landscape with depth and sincerity.