Charlton D. McIlwain

CTL-E-6251 · Person · scholar · 1971–present

VERIFIED evidence grade — build store (JSON graph)

Combined Graph record U-07443 · provenance: build store (JSON graph), record CTL-E-6251.

Charlton Deron McIlwain, born in 1971, is an American scholar of race, media, and technology. He earned a B.A. in family psychology from Oklahoma Baptist University in 1994 and a master's degree in human relations and a Ph.D. in communication from the University of Oklahoma, completing the doctorate in 2001. He joined the faculty of New York University in 2001 and is Professor of Media, Culture, and Communication at NYU's Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development, where his work focuses on the intersections of race, digital media, and racial justice activism. He also serves as NYU's Vice Provost for Faculty Engagement and Development and founded the university's Center for Critical Race and Digital Studies. His early books, Death in Black and White (2003) and When Death Goes Pop (2005), studied death, media, and community. With Stephen M. Caliendo he co-authored the award-winning Race Appeal: How Candidates Invoke Race in U.S. Political Campaigns and co-edited The Routledge Companion to Race and Ethnicity (2010). His Black Software: The Internet and Racial Justice, From the AfroNet to Black Lives Matter, published by Oxford University Press, traces Black engagement with computing and the internet from the AfroNet era to Black Lives Matter.

The record

• Also known as: Charlton Deron McIlwain, Charlton McIlwain

Notes

Staged 2026-10-16 under CTL-GOV-006 (Scan Tail Wave 7 — 747 Program, FINAL Wave 13; seventh Scan Tail packet at the founder's 40-record size). Gate A (2026-10-16): Gate A CLEAR (hand-checked 2026-10-16): no Charlton D. McIlwain entity, alias, or variant in the live graph (3,910 entities). ID CTL-E-6251 free at staging. Supply: 747 Supply Ledger — Tier 4 corpus scan tail, corpus-gap-candidates-2026-10-15.json ranked #2751. The scan supplied the name string only; every fact is sourced under CTL-GOV-004. SCOPE GATE: Black American scholar whose Black Software is a standard history of Black life on the internet — directly inside this graph's Black technology and digital-culture scope. Vital status: LIVING — the International Panel on the Information Environment and NYU Steinhardt both carry him in current roles (Vice Provost for Faculty Engagement and Development; Professor of Media, Culture, and Communication), pages accessed 2026-10-16. STATISTICS — Education and service dates (NYU Steinhardt; IPIE; accessed 2026-10-16): at NYU since 2001; degrees from Oklahoma Baptist University (B.A.) and the University of Oklahoma (master's and Ph.D., doctorate completed 2001 per the opened biographical record). Book dates: Death in Black and White (2003), When Death Goes Pop (2005), The Routledge Companion to Race & Ethnicity (2010). No statistics are asserted beyond these dated facts. Title note: an NYU-adjacent speaker biography styles the vice-provost portfolio 'Faculty Development, Pathways & Public Interest Technology'; this record uses the title as carried by IPIE and his NYU listing, Faculty Engagement and Development. MEDIA: photo HELD (HELD — candidate: the faculty portrait carried on McIlwain's NYU Steinhardt people page; no file page was read at file level and NO license is claimed — PHOTO-001 verification deferred. — named candidate only; file-level rights verification per CTL-PHOTO-001 still required; no license claimed); chart per media_spec (coordinator builds the CTL chart from this record's sourced facts); video HELD (No matching-entity CTL Short in the Shorts Link Map (shorts-link-map-2026-10-15.json, 233 rows, checked by name and variants, 2026-10-16); no near-miss title found.); audio HELD (no rights-cleared matching-entity audio staged); map N/A (person record). MEDIA LAYER (staged 2026-10-16; full per-asset PHOTO-001 records + embed specs in the packet's staged JSON, Drive packet folder): map = N/A (Person records carry no map slot.) | visual_assets = HELD: | chart = FILLED (Created for this packet (CTL graphic, CTL-PHOTO-001 lane) from the record's sourced facts.) | video = HELD (No matching-entity CTL Short in the Shorts Link Map (shorts-link-map-2026-10-15.json, 233 rows, checked by nam) | audio = HELD (No rights-cleared matching-entity audio staged; audio slot held pending a CTL-PHOTO-001-consistent rights basi)

Sources

• NYU Steinhardt, Charlton McIlwain faculty page (accessed 2026-10-16) — Professor of Media, Culture, and Communication at NYU Steinhardt; scholarly work on race, digital media, and racial justice activism; founder of the Center for Critical Race and Digital Studies; author of Black Software (Oxford University Press); co-author of Race Appeal; Ph.D. and master's from the University of Oklahoma, B.A. from Oklahoma Baptist University — https://steinhardt.nyu.edu/people/charlton-mcilwain (primary source · build store)
• International Panel on the Information Environment (IPIE), Charlton McIlwain (accessed 2026-10-16) — Vice Provost for Faculty Engagement and Development at NYU; leads the Center for Faculty Advancement; oversees NYU's Alliance for Public Interest Technology; at NYU since 2001; founder of the Center for Critical Race and Digital Studies; author of Black Software; education as on the NYU page — https://www.ipie.info/scientists/charlton-mcilwain (primary source · build store)
• Wikipedia, Charlton McIlwain (accessed 2026-10-16) — full name Charlton Deron McIlwain, born 1971; B.A. Oklahoma Baptist University 1994; Ph.D. University of Oklahoma 2001; joined NYU faculty 2001; books Death in Black & White (2003), When Death Goes Pop (2005), Race Appeal with Stephen M. Caliendo, editor of The Routledge Companion to Race & Ethnicity (2010); advisor to Data & Society — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlton_McIlwain (build store)

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