Steven D. Booth

Image of Steven sitting on a boulder wearing lime green frames, a grey sweatshirt, and cutoff denim.

A native of Chicago, Steven De'Juan Booth (he/him) is an archivist and independent researcher. His career has centered on taking care of the things that matter, namely collections that document the Black experience, including the papers of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the presidential records of Barack Obama, and the Johnson Publishing Company Archive.

Steven has also co-founded two collectives, Archivists of Metro D.C. (2015–2017) and The Blackivists (2018–2025). He currently serves on the board of The Unsung, a Harlem-based performance collective celebrating Black stories through classical music.

Beyond archival work, Steven has co-authored articles in the Archives of American Art Journal and Journal of Critical Library and Information Studies, chapters in Archival Values: Essays in Honor of Mark A. Greene (Society of American Archivists), Grabbing Tea: Queer Conversations on Archives and Practice (Litwin Books), and Virology: Essays for the Living, the Dead, and the Small Things in Between (W. W. Norton), and co-edited the digital project Loss/Capture (Sixty Inches From Center). His forthcoming co-authored books include A Survey of Archival Revolutions: Transitional Moments and Paradigmatic Shifts in Archival Enterprise, 1980–2020 (CLIR Pocket Burgundy Series), and See You at the Meeting: An Oral History about SAA's Archivists & Archives of Color (Society of American Archivists).

Steven is a Fellow of the Society of American Archivists and an alumnus of Morehouse College, Simmons College, and the Archives Leadership Institute.