Kevin Powell
Home >> Speakers >>

Nikki Giovanni has said, “ Kevin Powell is pushing to bring, as he has so brilliantly done before, the voices of his generation: the concerns, the cares, the fears, and the fearlessness.” Noted scholar Michael Eric Dyson has called Kevin Powell, “a mighty wind of fresh air.’ Legendary feminist icon Gloria Steinem proclaims that “as a charismatic speaker, leader and a very good writer, Kevin Powell has the courage…to be fully human, and this will bring the deepest revolution of all.”

Kevin Powell is a poet, journalist, essayist, editor, cultural curator, hip-hop historian, public speaker, political consultant, businessman and community activist. He was also an original cast member on the first season of MTV’s hugely popular show “The Real World.” A native of Jersey City, New Jersey, Kevin Powell is now a resident of Brooklyn, New York. It is from his base in New York that Kevin Powell has published six books, including his most recent, Who’s Gonna Take The weight? Manhood, Race, and Power in America, which is an Essence Magazine bestseller. Powell’s next project, Someday We’ll All Be Free, will be published in the Fall 2005 and will feature essays on American democracy, American leadership and the American Dream; Powell is also at work on his childhood memoir, homeboy alone, which will be published in the fall 2006 by Houghton-Mifflin.

Additionally, Powell is compiling his second volume of poetry, My Own Private Ghetto, and The Kevin Powell Reader, which will highlight the first twenty years of his literary career. Indeed, Powell has written numerous essays, articles, and reviews over the past two decades for publications such as Newsweek, The Washington Post, Essence, Code, Rolling Stone, The Amsterdam News, and Vibe, where he was a founding staff member and worked as a senior writer. A highly sought after lecturer and commentator, Kevin Powell has offered his insights on a variety of social issues, as well as on hip-hop and pop culture, to numerous TV, radio, newspaper, magazine and internet outlets in America, and internationally and he has spoken at colleges and universities, prisons and community centers, as well as at churches, conferences, and forums throughout the nation and abroad. Powell is currently producing a series of townhall meetings across American called the State of Black Men Tour, which will visit approximately 20 cities by December 2005.

Kevin Powell says of his life simply, “ My life calling is to be a servant for the people. Money, fame, status, personal achievements means very little to me when pain and suffering are still real on this planet. I am interested in the powerless becoming powerful.”

Back to Top

Lecture Topics:

• Race and Racism in America
• Living in Multicultural America
• Hip-Hop: The Music, The Culture, The History
• The State of Black America
• Dr. King, Civil Rights and Hip-Hop Generation
• Celebrating Kwanzaa, Celebrating Ourselves
• Black Male/Black Female Relationships