Robin D.G. Kelley

Robin D.G. Kelley was born in Harlem in 1962, where he spent the first nine years of his life “in the midst of a cultural and political revolution. That’s the only way to put it.” His school had a strong Black Panther Party presence, and he witnessed at a very young age the Harlem riots and later, from New York City, the assassination of Martin Luther King, the man whose legacy he discussed at Zócalo. Below, he told us more of his early life and present passions.

Q. What do you wake up to?
A. Besides the most beautiful woman on earth? KPFK. For a minute, and then I get to work.

Q. What’s your favorite word?
A. “Freedom” is one, and “abolition” is the other.

Q. What comforts you?
A. Humanity. That a different future is possible as long as we do the work.

Q. What inspires you?
A. Music, primarily. But philosophically, all the activists and intellectuals and committed freedom fighters who came before me, and every bit of writing, every action they left behind.

Q. How would you describe yourself in five words or fewer?
A. Humble student.

Q. If you could live in any other time, past, present or future, which would it be?
A. Would I have to live there? If I could just spend some time, just to see, it would be the American South in the 1860s and ’70s, at a moment when we almost achieved true democracy…. As terrible as the outcome was, that was a great moment.

Q. When are you most creative?
A. When I’m under deadline.

Q. What is your greatest extravagance?
A. My first Baldwin baby grand piano.

Q. If you could only take one more journey, where would you go?
A. South Africa. I’ve never been.

Q. What profession would you like to practice in your next life?
A. Musician.

Q. Whose talent would you like to have?
A. Thelonious Monk.

Q. What is your fondest childhood memory?
A. My mother singing Gershwin’s “Summertime” to us as a lullaby.

Q. What teacher or professor changed your life?
A. Three changed my life. My third grade teacher, Jane Andrias. A high school teacher, Thelma Reyna. And my college professor, Jack Stuart.

Q. What promise do you make to yourself that you break the most often?
A. That I will be patient.

Q. If you could have a beer with any person living or dead, who would it be?
A. I don’t drink, but OK, tea…. I can’t narrow it down. I have to have three, and all together: Lucy Parsons, Paul Robeson and Thelonious Monk.

*Photo by Aaron Salcido.