Michael is the Director of Community Engagement for the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University. One of the world’s largest special collections libraries and home of the James Weldon Johnson Memorial Collection of African American Arts and Letters, including papers donated by Dr. W. E. B. Du Bois, the Beinecke Library annually welcomes more than 150,000 public visitors to its exhibitions onsite, more than 10,000 visits to its research reading room, 10,000 students in its classrooms, and more than 300,000 unique visitors online worldwide.

He holds a bachelor’s and a master of divinity degree from Yale University. He is proud to have attended a university where Shirley Graham Du Bois did her graduate work in drama. Michael has been in the senior administration of Yale for three decades, previously serving as the university’s deputy chief communications officer and associate vice president for New Haven and state affairs.

Michael has served on the board of the National Urban Libraries Council (U.S.A.) and has been chair of the board of directors of New Haven Free Public Library and its affiliated foundation. Michael is currently chair of the Friends of the Grove Street Cemetery, the first chartered burial ground in the U.S.A. (1797) and the final resting place of Dr. W. E. B. Du Bois’s grandfather, Alexander Du Bois. He is the author of a chapter in Yale and Slavery: A History (forthcoming 2024) and has been a leader in the overall research and editing of that book by David Blight with the Yale and Slavery Research Project.

He has engaged frequently with Ghana since 2012, both traveling often to Ghana and welcoming Ghanaian colleagues in New Haven. Among the blessings in his life, those he cherishes most include the relationships he has come to enjoy with numerous artists, cultural organizers, and civic leaders in Ghana.