Ibram X. Kendi

Ibram Xolani Kendi is an American author, professor, anti-racist activist, and historian of race and discriminatory policy in America. In July 2020, he assumed the director position of Center for Antiracist Research at Boston University. Kendi was included in Time's 100 Most Influential People of 2020.

Kendi was born in the Jamaica neighborhood of the New York City borough of Queens to middle-class parents, Carol Rogers, a former business analyst for a healthcare organization, and Larry Rogers, a tax accountant and then hospital chaplain. Both of his parents are now retired and work as Methodist ministers. He has an older brother, Akil.

From third to eighth grade, Kendi attended private Christian schools in Queens. After attending John Bowne High School as a freshman, at age 15, Kendi moved with his family to Manassas, Virginia, in 1997 and attended Stonewall Jackson High School for his final three years of high school, from which he graduated in 2000.

In 2005, Kendi received dual B.S. degrees in African American Studies and magazine production from Florida A&M University. In 2007, Kendi earned an M.A. and, in 2010, a Ph.D. in African American Studies from Temple University. Kendi's dissertation was titled "The Black Campus Movement: An Afrocentric Narrative History of the Struggle to Diversify Higher Education, 1965-1972". His advisor was Ama Mazama.

From 2008 to 2012, Kendi was an assistant professor of history in the department of Africana and Latino Studies at the department of history at State University of New York at Oneonta.[9] From 2012 to 2015, Kendi was an assistant professor of Africana Studies in the department of Africana Studies as well as the department of history at the University at Albany, SUNY. During this time, from 2013 to 2014, Kendi was a visiting scholar in the department of Africana Studies at Brown University. He taught courses as a visiting assistant professor in the fall of 2014.

From 2015 to 2017, Kendi was an assistant professor at the University of Florida's history department's African American Studies program. In 2017, Kendi became a history and international relations professor at the College of Arts and Sciences (CAS) and the School of International Service (SIS) at American University in Washington, D.C. In September 2017, Kendi founded the Antiracist Research and Policy Center at American University, serving as its executive director.

In June 2020, it was announced that Kendi would join Boston University as a professor of history. Upon accepting the position, Kendi agreed to move the Antiracist Research and Policy Center at American University to Boston University, where he will serve as the founding director of the Boston University Center for Antiracist Research. In addition, during the 2020–2021 academic year, Kendi served as the Frances B. Cashin Fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University.