Jay Youngdahl

Jay Youngdahl grew up in Little Rock, Arkansas in the aftermath of the struggle to integrate Central High School. There he was drawn into the maelstrom of movements over Civil Rights and the Vietnam War, and was drafted in the US Army in 1972.  He has been a member of and organizer for several unions, and has made his living for the past four decades as a union and civil rights lawyer in the South.  Beginning in middle age he worked to academically analyze his experiences, earning a Master’s in Divinity at Harvard University in 2007, and serving as a Fellow in Ethics and Responsible Investment at Harvard for nearly a decade.  For many years he wrote a column for the Oakland-based newspaper, the East Bay Express, and in 2011 he wrote, “Working on the Railroad, Walking in Beauty,” a book about the rich and complex relationship of Navajos workers and American railroads in the desert southwest.  He received a MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2021.