Kevin Powell is an activist, writer, public speaker, and entrepreneur and, in 2008 and 2010, was a Democratic candidate for Congress in Brooklyn, New York. A product of extreme poverty, welfare, fatherlessness, and a single mother-led household, he is a native of Jersey City, New Jersey and was educated at New Jersey’s Rutgers University. Kevin is a longtime resident of Brooklyn, New York, and it is from his base in New York City that he has published eleven books, including his newest collection of political and pop culture writings, Barack Obama, Ronald Reagan, and The Ghost of Dr. King: Blogs and Essays (www.lulu.com).
Indeed, Kevin has written numerous essays, articles, reviews, and blogs through the years for publications such as Esquire, Newsweek, The Washington Post, Essence, Rolling Stone, The Amsterdam News, huffingtonpost.com, and Vibe, where he was a founding staff member and served as a senior writer, interviewing and profiling, among many others, General Colin Powell and the late Tupac Shakur. Additionally Kevin has been a Writing Fellow for the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, as well as a Phelps Stokes Fund Senior Fellow.
He is currently a columnist for TheGuardian.com, one of the oldest and most respect news publications in the world.
A gifted and sought after public speaker, Kevin has lectured on multiculturalism, building corporate responsibility, American and Black American history, the life of Dr. King, civil rights, American politics and civic engagement, sexism from a male perspective, leadership, social activism, the state of hiphop, redefining American manhood, and being Black and male in America, among other topics, at hundreds of colleges and universities, community centers, prisons, religious institutions, conferences, and festivals, as well as in corporate settings. Furthermore, Kevin routinely offers his insights on a variety of matters, to TV, radio, newspaper, magazine, and internet outlets in America, and globally.
A fixture on the pop culture landscape the past several years, Kevin was a cast member on the first season of MTV’s “The Real World”; has hosted and produced programming for HBO and BET; written a screenplay; hosted and wrote an award-winning MTV documentary about post-riot Los Angeles (“Straight From The ‘Hood”); and was the Guest Curator of the Brooklyn Museum of Art’s “Hip-Hop Nation: Roots, Rhymes, and Rage”—which originated at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum in Cleveland, Ohio, and of which Kevin was the exhibition consultant—the first major exhibit in America on the history of hiphop.
Of paramount importance to Kevin Powell, however, is his activism. He has been a leader in some form or fashion for over twenty years, dating back to his days as a teenager at Rutgers University. He was a participant in the student-led anti-apartheid movement, the drive to end racism in South Africa. He has been at the forefront of police brutality and racial bias cases. He has worked for years around voting rights. Kevin is one of the most prominent voices in the hiphop generation, and he has organized a number of concerts, mc battles, rallies, and forums that stress the use of hiphop as a tool for social change. As a result of his own past personal struggles, contradictions, growth, and a commitment to therapy and healing, Kevin has become a very outspoken critic of violence against women and girls, of violence in general, and he has been at the forefront of the movement to redefine manhood away from sexism and violence. Kevin also plays a key role in the Black male development arena, having produced, the past few years, among other things, a 10-city State of Black Men Tour, numerous Black male think tank sessions, and Black and Male in America, a 3-Day national conference. Kevin has taught, mentored, and counseled in schools, camps, prisons, and on the streets of urban America.
He has produced an annual holiday party and clothing drive every December in New York City that benefits the needy since 2001. Also, Kevin was a central figure in Gulf Coast disaster relief efforts, facilitating the delivery of goods and services to the affected regions, and being a cofounder of “Katrina on the Ground,” an initiative that sent over 700 college students to work in the devastated region. Most recently Kevin has been very active in Haiti relief efforts, helping to ship thousands of pounds of supplies to that Caribbean nation. Finally, Kevin is launching, with other American leaders of his generation a new organization, BK Nation, in early 2012. BK Nation will be both a strong online advocate for civic engagement and social change, and also offline with chapters in American communities nationwide, working on issues like education and the creation of jobs and small businesses.
Of his life work Kevin Powell says, simply, "My life-calling is to be a servant for the people, period. Money, fame, status, personal achievements, and all that means very little to me when pain and suffering are still real on this planet. I am interested in the powerless becoming powerful.”
Source: http://www.kevinpowell.net
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