George R. Greenidge, Jr. has been awarded the inaugural 2022 American Sociological Association’s Community & Urban Publicly Engaged Scholar Award for his convening and advocacy, diversity, equity and inclusion programming efforts in urban communities/cities. The American Sociological Association, founded in 1905, is the national professional membership association for sociologists and others who are interested in sociology. ASA members include students, faculty working in a full range of institutions, and people working in government agencies and nonprofit and private sector organizations. With a membership of over 13,000, ASA’s mission is to serve sociologists in their work, advance sociology as a science and profession, and promote the contributions and use of sociology to society.
Greenidge is currently a visiting fellow at the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation at the Harvard Kennedy School. He is a Ph.D. candidate in Sociology at Georgia State University, where his current research focuses on the economic development of urban cities and the impact of displacement and gentrification on its residents. Greenidge has served in several capacities throughout his career in the nonprofit, government, philanthropy, and education fields.
He has worked as an economic fellow at the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, and urban fellow with the GSU College of Law’s Center for the Comparative Study of Metropolitan Growth and with GSU’s inaugural field school research projects as a team leader and interviewer in urban housing policy.
Greenidge holds a master’s degree in Human Development and Psychology from Harvard University Graduate School of Education and a bachelor’s in Political Science/International Studies from Morehouse College. Most notably, he was president of the Boston Empowerment Zone, a federally funded HUD initiative aimed at economic investment in U.S. urban neighborhoods, and the founder and executive director of the Greatest MINDS/National Black College Alliance, Inc., a nonprofit focused on providing alumni mentors to college and high school students. He is a member of Omega Psi Phi Fraternity.
Recently, Greenidge was recognized by the United Negro College Fund and the Boston Red Sox with their inaugural Homecoming Award for his life-long commitment to providing mentorship to over 10,000 high school and college students pursuing college degrees in Boston, MA, and Atlanta, GA.
