Dayo F. Gore Named 2023 Freedom Scholar

Dayo F. Gore, an associate professor in the Department of African American Studies, has been named a 2023 Freedom Scholar by the Marguerite Casey Foundation. 

The prize, which comes with an unrestricted award of $250,000, empowers progressive academics to pursue research and advocacy for racial and economic justice. 

“I am humbled and inspired to be included among such a powerful and thoughtful group of scholar activists,” said Gore. 

Fighting for Freedom with Scholarship

The Freedom Scholars awards, which began in 2020, are part of the Marguerite Casey Foundation’s overarching mission to bring power and voice to the peripheries of society. 

“The 2023 Freedom Scholars are at the forefront of teaching, researching and writing about shifting the balance of power in society,” said Carmen Rojas, Marguerite Casey Foundation president and CEO. “Marguerite Casey Foundation’s Freedom Scholars award is committed to providing social and economic justice scholars room to deepen their relationship with movement leaders fighting for a multiracial democracy and just economy.” 

Gore’s research touches on history, politics, activism, gender studies and the intersection of all four in the African diaspora. Her book Radicalism at the Crossroads: African American Women Activists in the Cold War explores the untold stories of black, radical women during the onset of the Cold War. 

“As a scholar who centers Black women’s political thought and activism, I see my work as making visible the transformative power of people in collective action and the ways these activists have engaged, taken up and negotiated the intersecting forces of race, gender, sexuality and class in their organizing and theorizing,” said Gore.

Gore’s forthcoming book project is an examination of black women’s transnational travels and activism in the long 20th century, ranging from Ida B. Wells’ speaking tours of England and Scotland in the 1890s to the transnational campaign to free incarcerated activist and academic Angela Davis.

“Throughout her career, Dayo F. Gore has been a vital advocate for Black Studies’ global mission to pursue and sustain interdisciplinarity knowledge production and community activism for the betterment of humanity,” said LaMonda Horton-Stallings, chair of the Department of African American Studies. “We are fortunate to have such a phenomenal scholar-teacher-activist at Georgetown.” 

Gore currently organizes with Scholars for Social Justice, a group of academics that mobilizes the knowledge, skills and resources of scholars to amplify and fight for a political agenda that insists on justice for all.

“Since joining the Department of African American Studies in 2020, Gore has made invaluable contributions to the department through her innovative courses centered on the cultural histories of Black Americans, Black women’s transnational activism and interdisciplinary research methods class,” said Horton-Stallings.

-by Hayden Frye (C’17)