In 1988, she became the first African-American woman to receive tenure at Yale University.

[2] Sylvia Ardyn Boone was born September 30, 1940.

She attended Brooklyn College as an undergraduate and received a graduate degree in social sciences from Columbia University.

[6] In 1989, Boone was active in the organization of the commemoration of the 150th anniversary of the 1839 Amistad Affair.

In 1996, Yale University's History of Art and African and African-American Studies departments awarded the first Sylvia Ardyn Boone Prize.