2020/21 Portland Arts & Lectures: Ibram X. Kendi

Ibram X. Kendi is a New York Times bestselling author and the founding director of The Antiracist Research and Policy Center at American University. A professor of history and international relations, Kendi is a contributing writer at The Atlantic. He is the author of The Black Campus Movement and Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America, which won the 2016 National Book Award for Nonfiction. Kendi was awarded the prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship and he was honored on The Root 100 in 2019. Kendi’s third book, How to Be an Antiracist, debuted at no. 2 on the New York Times bestseller list and was hailed by the New York Times as “the most courageous book to date on the problem of race in the Western mind.” A young adult version of Stamped from the Beginning, co-authored with Jason Reynolds published in March 2020. Kendi lives in Washington, D.C.

“Navigating truth is my writing. As a scholar, I am not striving to be objective. I am striving to share the truth, even when the truth challenges me and my ideas. Truth is complicated. It is difficult to share the multi-layered truth in abstract ways. Narrative allows me to share truth in its personal and societal complexities.” (PEN)

“The key to great writing is great ideas. There are many people who can put together a beautiful sentence. But what makes a sentence memorable is the idea it projects.” (PEN)

On writing How to Be an Antiracist: “Initially, I was like, that central character will not be me. I’m too private. I don’t want to show all of my bones and all of my baggage and all those shameful moments that I’m still ashamed of. I don’t know — I don’t want to do that. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized: How can I ask other people to share those shameful moments, to free themselves of their baggage, to confess the most racist moments of their lives, if I’m not willing to do that, too?” (Washington Post)

Praise for How to Be an Antiracist:

“The most courageous book to date on the problem of race in the Western mind.” — The New York Times

“Ibram Kendi is today’s visionary in the enduring struggle for racial justice. In this personal and revelatory new work, he yet again holds up a transformative lens, challenging both mainstream and antiracist orthodoxy. He illuminates the foundations of racism in revolutionary new ways, and I am consistently challenged and inspired by his analysis. How to Be an Antiracist offers us a necessary and critical way forward.” — Robin DiAngelo, New York Times bestselling author of White Fragility

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