The journey from the Bay Area to Howard University marked the first big step in Josiah Jacobs’ transformation. He went from a curious child who memorized historical facts to a scholar devoted to Black liberation.
Josiah was the kind of child who could recite all the U.S. presidents by age eight. He was known as the “history buff” in his class. His hunger for knowledge showed itself early, but the road to making it a vocation wound through unexpected turns.
His path shifted during a time of crisis. When COVID-19 hit during his freshman year at Howard, Josiah returned home to San Francisco for nearly a year and a half. The quiet of that time became a catalyst. While the world slowed, he sharpened. He read deeply. He wrote. He reflected. He grew.
“I think all the time I had alone with myself really helped me dive deeper into who I was as a person,” he says. “It allowed me to reinvigorate some interests that I had maybe ignored in the past.”
Then came another rupture: the murder of George Floyd. Josiah and his friends helped organize one of Oakland’s largest protest marches in history. The streets swelled with people and purpose. “I think everybody has a different way of being a leader,” Josiah explains. “And I felt like, for me, being a leader was being an intellectual and trying to use my knowledge to help others in the world.”
When he returned to Howard, he approached his education with new urgency. “Coming back, I wasn’t taking anything for granted,” he says. “In every class, I built connections with my teachers, not because I wanted something from them but because I was fascinated by what they were talking about.”
His professors opened a wider lens. They helped Josiah “think about the world from a Black perspective,” expanding his understanding beyond the Eurocentric narratives of his early education. One moment stuck with him: Dr. Richard Wright, a Howard professor of fifty years, recalling the day Malcolm X spoke on campus in 1961. Josiah had just finished The Autobiography of Malcolm X. The past stood up and walked into the present.
These experiences prepared him for the next chapter. When his girlfriend shared the announcement for the SNF Agora pre-doctoral fellowship at Johns Hopkins, the fit was immediate. The Institute’s mission matched his emerging identity as a scholar and organizer.
Now in his second year, Josiah values how the program has helped him refine his voice and vision. “I’m appreciative of how open they made our pre-doc program,” he says. He has taken courses across disciplines. He has met mentors who challenge and support him. “Agora,” he says simply, “has given me the opportunity to truly find my path.”
That path has been shaped by deep mentorship. Dr. Vesla Weaver has guided both his research and life decisions. Dr. Minka Makalani “always pushes my thinking.” Dr. Joshua Simon has spent hours talking through his ideas. And on the court, playing basketball with Dr. Lester Spence, Josiah has found another kind of grounding.
His research today focuses on the decline of Black-led and Black-serving institutions in the Bay Area and what that means for political engagement. “The Bay Area has a very liberal ethos,” Josiah says. “That can sometimes be deceptive. You might not see overt racism in a place like the Bay Area, but the outcomes of white supremacy persist.”
He names what’s missing. Black bookstores. Black businesses. The Safeway in the Fillmore District, where he once worked, now shuttered. “If you truly want to understand how this democracy works,” he says, “you should look at the people who have been denied it.”
This perspective, grounded in lived experience and historical knowledge, guides his vision for democracy and civic life. It is also at the heart of SNF Agora’s mission.
Being in Baltimore, close to Howard friends and new colleagues, gives him stability. He is still co-hosting the “Black Lotus” podcast, created with his childhood friend Michael. He is active in Black Men Build. The work, like the learning, does not pause.
Josiah will begin a new chapter in his academic journey as he enters the PhD program in Black Studies at Northwestern University. Building on the research and mentorship he received at SNF Agora, he will continue exploring how institutions shape political life and how Black communities create new forms of democratic engagement.
From a boy who loved history to a fellow helping shape it, Josiah Jacobs shows how institutions like the SNF Agora Institute cultivate thinkers ready to strengthen democracy. Through scholarship, storytelling, and service, he keeps working toward what he calls “true Black liberation,” using knowledge not just to understand the world but to help change it.