Darien Alexander Williams

Urban H Interests: Heat, Housing, Health

Darien Alexander Williams is an assistant professor in the Macro Practice Department with a focus on environmental & climate justice. His research broadly engages Black and Muslim urban planning history, hurricane disaster recovery, climate change, and community organizing.

Williams’ research examines methods of counter-institution building developed by Black and Muslim organizations grappling with segregation and land clearance in urban neighborhoods across the 20th century, with particular attention given to Roxbury, Massachusetts. By drawing on diverse sources such as archival documents, organization financial records, the Black press, interview data, and present-day fieldwork, Williams’ work maps the claims to land made by Black religious and Nationalist groups who challenged common assumptions about citizenship, identity, and planning power.

Williams also does Florida Sea Grant-supported participatory action research with a team interrogating health, climate change, and spatial justice in Jacksonville, Florida. He also works alongside researchers and community organizers at the intersection of climate disaster, urban planning, and incarceration along the Gulf Coast. Both projects draw on and contribute to an abolitionist framework of emergency management.

Williams has previously worked in Eastern North Carolina on long-term planning in historically Black towns in the aftermath of Hurricane Matthew. He is currently an organizer for the Queer Muslims of Boston, a grassroots organization that builds social and spiritual space for LGBTQ Muslims across New England.