Kevin Powell

For Canadian football player, see Kevin Powell (Canadian football).

Kevin Powell
Kevin Powell
Born	(1966-04-24) April 24, 1966 United States
Nationality	American
Occupation(s)	Political activist, writer, reality television personality
Spouse	Jinah Parker ​ ​ (m. 2017; div. 2020)​

Kevin Powell (born April 24, 1966) is an American writer, civil and human rights activist, poet, journalist, public speaker, filmmaker and entrepreneur. Powell is the author of 14 books, including The Education of Kevin Powell: A Boy's Journey into Manhood and his most recent When We Free the World published in 2020. Powell routinely appears in interviews on television, radio, in print and on the Internet discussing major social and political issues, and his writing has appeared in numerous major media outlets. As a senior writer during the founding years of Vibe magazine from 1992 to 1996, Powell interviewed a diverse array of public figures from Tupac Shakur to General Colin Powell. He routinely travels nationally and globally as a public speaker, at colleges and corporations, at various institutions, and a wide range of communities.

As a humanitarian and activist, Powell’s work has focused on ending poverty, advocating for social justice and counteracting violence against women and girls through local, national and international initiatives. He was a Democratic candidate for Congress in Brooklyn, New York, his adopted hometown, in 2008 and 2010. On behalf of the U.S. State Department, he toured Japan lecturing on the relevance of Dr. King's famous "I Have A Dream" speech in the 21st century.

Powell is an acclaimed political, cultural, literary and hip-hop thought leader. He was the curator for the first exhibit on the history of hip-hop in America at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio, which he helped produce including a tour across the United States and overseas. In 2014, he was invited by the Welsh Government to the United Kingdom for a series of lectures and workshops on the 100th birthday of 20th century poet Dylan Thomas, and the connections between Welsh and American poetry and spoken-word traditions. As a result, he was named the International Ambassador for the Dylan Thomas Centennial in America.

As an acknowledgement of Powell's life of public service and his dedication to literature and the arts, Cornell University recently became the owner of The Kevin Powell Archive, documenting nearly 30 years of his work to date in print, photos, videos, books, handwritten notes, speeches, and select memorabilia beginning with his appearance in the first season of the first television reality series MTV's, The Real World: New York in 1992.

Early life and career

The Education of Kevin Powell: A Boy's Journey into Manhood

The book jacket for Kevin Powell's memoir, published by Atria in 2015.

Powell was born and raised in Jersey City, NJ where his parents met after migrating from North Carolina. Abandoned by his father, Powell was raised by a hard-working single mother from the South in the one-bedroom apartment they shared with his aunt and her son. Throughout a childhood marked by horrific poverty, violence and abuse, Powell maintained a passion for reading and spent countless hours in the public library. He credits his mother with ensuring he received a better education than her own, and for instilling in him a commitment to learning. He and his cousin grew up to be the first in their family to graduate high school, and Powell was able to attend Rutgers University through the Educational Opportunity Fund, a program created during the Civil Rights Movement to benefit poor youth. His memoir, The Education of Kevin Powell: A Boy's Journey into Manhood tells this story of his upbringing, which according to Publisher's Weekly, "...packs a powerful punch, full of urban realness and raw emotions."

At Rutgers, Powell studied political science, English and philosophy with the ambition of becoming a professional writer. As a student, he was greatly influenced by the work of Rutgers scholar, Dr. Cheryl Wall who introduced him to the critical study of Harlem Renaissance writers and black women authors such as Zora Neal Hurston. He was active in student leadership, helping to organize around the anti-apartheid movement, Jesse Jackson's 1988 presidential campaign and other social justice initiatives. Contemporaries such as activist Sistah Souljah and poet Ras Baraka (who went on to become an educator and Mayor of Newark, NJ in 2014) had a strong impact on his social consciousness.

Powell began his career as a contributing reporter to The Amsterdam News, and a freelance writer for publications such as Rolling Stone which established his foundation as a journalist. In 1992, he became known as a public figure in his role as an original cast member of the The Real World: New York, the first season of the MTV reality television series in which a group of strangers live together for several months. During his stay in the house, Powell sparked controversial discussions with his housemates, raising incendiary issues about stereotypes and race; the same kinds of issues that - thirty years later - gained international attention in the 21st century Black Lives Matter movement. The Real World thrust him into the spotlight and established his pop culture identity at a moment that coincided with his first major career break when VIBE magazine launched in 1993.

Writings

Powell has written for publications such as Esquire, Newsweek, The Washington Post, Essence, Rolling Stone, New York Amsterdam News, and Vibe, where he was a founding staff member and served as a senior writer. He interviewed and profiled General Colin Powell and Tupac Shakur. Most recently, he has been a Writing Fellow for the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, as well as a Phelps Stokes Fund Senior Fellow.

Since 1993, Powell has published 14 books, including Barack Obama, Ronald Reagan, and the Ghost of Dr. King: Blogs and Essays. Powell's childhood memoir, My Own Private Ghetto, and The Kevin Powell Reader were published in 2011 and 2012 respectively.

Media appearances and lectures

Kevin Powell at the home of Dylan Thomas in Swansea, Wales.

Powell has hosted and produced programming for HBO and BET; written a screenplay; hosted and written an award-winning MTV documentary about post-riot Los Angeles; and, in 2001, was the Guest Curator of the Brooklyn Museum's "Hip-Hop Nation: Roots, Rhymes, and Rage" — which originated at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum in Cleveland, Ohio.

He has lectured in 48 states at colleges, universities, community centers, prisons, religious institutions, conferences, and festivals, as well as in corporate settings (including Harvard University and the United Nations). Powell is a frequent guest commentator on VH1, MTV, BET, and other media platforms about popular culture, political and social justice issues.

Activism

Beginning with his days as a teenager at Rutgers University, he participated in the student-led anti-apartheid movement – the drive to end white supremacy in South Africa. Powell has worked on issues of police brutality and racial bias cases and he has worked for years around voting rights.

As a result of his own past struggles, Powell has committed his life to personal healing and professional therapeutic counseling. He is an outspoken critic of violence against women and girls, of violence in general, and he has been at the forefront of the movement to redefine American manhood away from sexism and violence.

Powell produced the 10-city "State of Black Men National Townhall Meetings" tour (2004), numerous Black male think tank sessions, and "Black and Male in America, a 3-Day National Conference" (2007) (www.blackandmaleinamerica.org). He holds an annual holiday party and clothing drive every December in New York City to benefit the homeless teenagers of the SafeHorizon non-profit organization. He co-founded the grassroots community townhall series Hiphop Speaks! (with social entrepreneur, activist, and writer April Silver), which he describes as "a series of forums and MC battles geared toward using hip hop as a tool for social change." Powell participated in Gulf Coast disaster relief efforts, facilitating the delivery of goods and services to the affected regions, and being a co-founder (with social commentator Jeff Johnson) of "Katrina on the Ground," an initiative that sent over 700 college students to work in the devastated region.

African-American social networking tool BlackPlanet featured Powell as "Riser of the Month" in February 2011 for his support of the African-American community.

Politics

In 2006, Powell launched his first bid to unseat Edolphus Towns in New York's 10th congressional district, located in Brooklyn, discontinuing his campaign in July of that year. In 2008, Powell ran for Congress again, in a campaign that was backed by celebrities such as Chris Rock and what ABC News described as "big names from Brooklyn's 10th district". During the campaign, Towns made frequent reference to Powell's self-professed early history of violence against women, issues Powell has discussed in his early writings and has indicated he has overcome through therapy. These references were addressed by Powell in an open letter to Ed Towns, where he also appealed to Mr. Towns to focus on issues. In a June 2008 interview with Theodore Hamm in The Brooklyn Rail, Powell addressed media coverage focusing on his past: "My issue of violence against women happened between 1987–1991, which is now seventeen years ago. I've written about it very prominently [...] I think if you're going to be a public servant, regardless if you're an elected official ... you have a responsibility to be transparent and accountable for everything you do."

Powell lost this race 67%–32%, receiving 11,046 votes compared to 22,586 for Edolphus Towns. Powell announced that he would run again in 2010. Powell lost again in 2010 and later ruled out running in 2012.

Books

• In the Tradition: An Anthology of Young Black Writers, Edited by Powell and Ras Baraka (1993) (ISBN 0-86316-316-5)
• recognize Poetry by Kevin Powell (1995) (ISBN 0-86316-324-6)
• Keepin' It Real: Post-MTV Reflections On Race, Sex, and Politics Essays by Kevin Powell (1997) (ISBN 0-345-40400-9)
• Step into a World: A Global Anthology of The New Black Literature Edited by Kevin Powell (2000) (ISBN 0-471-38060-1)
• Who Shot Ya? Three Decades of Hiphop Photography Photographs by Ernie Ernie Paniccioli, Edited by Kevin Powell (2002) (ISBN 0-06-621168-9)
• Who's Gonna Take The Weight? Manhood, Race, and Power in America Essays by Kevin Powell (2002) (ISBN 0-609-81044-8)
• Someday We'll All Be Free Essays by Kevin Powell (2006) (ISBN 1-933368-57-8)
• No Sleep Till Brooklyn, New and Selected Poems Poetry by Kevin Powell (2008) (ISBN 978-0-9796636-9-7)
• The Black Male Handbook: A Blueprint for Life edited by Kevin Powell (2008) (ISBN 978-1416592242)
• Open Letters to America: Essays by Kevin Powell (2009) (ISBN 978-1593762148)
• Barack Obama, Ronald Reagan, and the Ghost of Dr. King by Kevin Powell (2012) (ISBN 978-1105414091)
• The Education of Kevin Powell: A Boy's Journey into Manhood by Kevin Powell (2015) (ISBN 978-1439163689)
• My Mother, Barack Obama, Donald Trump and The Last Stand of the Angry White Man by Kevin Powell (2018) (ISBN 978-1982105259)
• When We Free the World by Kevin Powell (2020) (ISBN 978-1940939339)
• 2020: The Year That Changed America, Edited by Kevin Powell's Writing Workshop (2021) (AISN B08VCXK2HV)

Selected Speeches and Interviews

Documenting the Pandemic's Impact On New York | KPFA (4/17/2020) In an interview with KPFA's Jeannine Etter, author and activist Kevin Powell recounts visiting New York's 5 hard-hit boroughs with photographer Kay Hickman last March to document how they had been impacted by coronavirus pandemic.

Challenging Racism In Minnesota | KMOJ (6/17/2020) Kevin Powell tells KMOJ DJ Glenn Golden about the racist court proceedings he endured in Minnesota in 2018 that inspired his 14th book When We Free The World.

Experiencing Racism In Minneapolis Russell Simmons Rape Allegations | KPFA (6/17/2020) Kevin Powell speaks to KPFA's Jeannine Etter about the events that inspired his book When We Free The World.

External links

• Official website
• Kevin Powell at IMDb