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Ibram Xolani Kendi (born Ibram Henry Rogers; August 13, 1982) is an American author, professor, anti-racism activist, and historian of race and discriminatory policy in the U.S. He is author of books including Stamped from the Beginning, How to Be an Antiracist, Antiracist Baby, and Chain of Ideas. He has been interviewed by such figures as Stephen Colbert and Oprah Winfrey, and in 2019, the New York Times referred to him as "one of the country’s most in-demand commentators on racism." Kendi was also included in Time's 100 Most Influential People of 2020.

In July 2020, he founded the Center for Antiracist Research at Boston University where he served as director until 2025. An internal investigation was launched into potential financial mismanagement of the center. Kendi was cleared of financial mismanagement, but the center underwent an audit regarding his leadership and the center's culture. In 2021, Kendi was a recipient of the MacArthur Fellows Program award. In January 2025, Howard University announced that Kendi would join its faculty and lead its newly founded Institute for Advanced Study, created to investigate the African diaspora. In 2026, he was appointed as the inaugural Carter G. Woodson Endowed Chair in History in the College of Arts and Sciences at Howard University.

Early life and education

Kendi was born in the Jamaica neighborhood of the New York City borough of Queens, as Ibram Henry Rogers, to middle-class African-American parents, Carol Rogers, a former business analyst for a health-care organization, and Larry Rogers, a tax accountant and then hospital chaplain. Larry and Carol were both deeply religious and profoundly influenced by black liberation theology. They met as student activists. Both of Kendi's 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. In 1997, then age 15, Kendi moved with his family to Manassas, Virginia, after having attended John Bowne High School as a freshman. He attended Stonewall Jackson High School, named for Confederate general Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson, for his final three years of high school. He graduated in 2000. In 2020, a petition circulated calling for the renaming of the high school. Warren Christian, a direct descendant of Jackson, called for the school to be rechristened in honor of Kendi. The school was instead ultimately renamed for Arthur Reed, a longtime employee.

In 2005, Kendi received dual B.S. degrees in African American studies and magazine production from Florida A&M University. One of his professors, who taught a course on African history, described him as a student who sat at the front of class, participated in lively debate with other students, and was "engaged and attentive." Originally intending to become a sports journalist or news broadcaster, he interned for both The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and The Mobile Register as an undergrad. After these internships, he became more interested in pursuing a career that involved African American studies. He also interned with the Tallahassee Democrat and wrote a weekly column for Florida A&M's student newspaper, The Famuan. His Famuan column was discontinued at the request of the Democrat after he wrote an article claiming European people had invented HIV/AIDS to fight off the "extinction" of their race. According to the Washington Post, Kendi realized in college that "judging white people as a group is as racist as judging black people as a group."

Kendi continued his studies at Temple University where he was advised by Ama Mazama, earning an M.A. in 2007 and a Ph.D. in 2010, both in African American studies. Kendi's dissertation was titled "The Black Campus Movement: An Afrocentric Narrative History of the Struggle to Diversify Higher Education, 1965–1972."

Career

Teaching

From 2009 to 2012, Kendi was an assistant professor of history in the department of Africana and Latino Studies within the department of history at State University of New York at Oneonta. 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 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, where he taught courses as a visiting assistant professor in the fall of 2014.

From 2015 to 2017, Kendi was an assistant professor in the history department and African American Studies program at the University of Florida.

In 2017, Kendi became a professor of history and international relations at the College of Arts and Sciences (CAS) and 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. The same night that Kendi publicly introduced the center, someone vandalized American University by posting fliers depicting the Confederate flag with cotton balls stuck to them around campus.

In June 2020, it was announced that Kendi would join Boston University as a professor of history. Upon accepting the position, Kendi agreed to step down from the Antiracist Research and Policy Center at American University and relocate to Boston University, and become the founding director of the Boston University Center for Antiracist Research. When he was hired at Boston University, Kendi was awarded its Andrew W. Mellon Professorship in the Humanities, whose only prior recipient was author, activist, and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel.

During the 2020–2021 academic year, Kendi served as the Frances B. Cashin Fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University.