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REV. DR.
KEVIN C.
PETERSON

BOSTON BASED ACTIVIST

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Meet Rev. Dr. Kevin C. Peterson

Public Speaker

Reverend Kevin C. Peterson is a dynamic and sought-after speaker on issues related to race, politics, U.S. history and civic engagement American experience. He champions public action, civic life and fostering public and political friendship. He has lectured or delivered speeches across the United States, on the continent of Africa and in Europe. Rev. Peterson uses black history as a way of understanding the value, dynamics and choreography of American democracy. As an orator and media commentator on matters of our civic culture, he focuses upon community organizing as a vehicle toward interpreting and acting upon the insidious forms of racial and political injustice that characterize modern life in America. He is available to speak to audiences, including youth groups, college students, corporate audiences, community gatherings, conferences and churches. He is open to media requests and commentary.

Policy + Grassroots Activist

The intense areas where it may be possible to impact public life serves as places of focus and work of Rev. Kevin Peterson. A seasoned community organizer, he has engaged in numerous non-partisan electoral justice campaigns in Boston and across the country. Rev. Peterson is skilled at community organizing as a trainer and facilitator. He has honed his insights and skills as a Community Fellow at MIT, the Center for Collaborative Leadership at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. Rev. Peterson is currently an affiliate faculty member at the Center for Anti-Racist Research at Boston University where he focuses on the politics of racial reparations, public safety. Politics, for Rev. Peterson, is the gateway toward developing our ideals about justice within the context of our common life.

Preacher + Public Theologian 

While Rev. Kevin Peterson spends much of his community efforts in the areas of local and national politics, he is also grounded as a person of deep faith. He possesses a fidelity to the power of sacred understanding and practice--prayer, fasting and consultation of a cross-section of sacred texts.  Having been born into the black pentecostal church, he has nurtured and extended his faith commitments and perspectives at such institutions as the black pentecostal church, Boston University, Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary, and the Wayland Baptist Theological Seminary, where he received an honorary doctorate of humane letters. Rev. Kevin Peterson is a social gospel preacher whose sermons touch upon justice in the community as much as they speak to redemption in times to come. His faith claims are compatible and usable toward addressing justice for those whose backs are against the wall.

Kevin Peterson is available to speak on a variety of topics related to:
  • U.S. Race Relations

  • American Civil Rights History

    • Reparations

    • Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. & Social Ethics

    • Corporate Training Related to DEI

  • Changing the Name of Faneuil Hall (Boston)

  • Redistricting, Voting and Electoral Policy

  • Public Safety

  • Black History Month

  • Juneteenth

  • Christian Faith & Politics

Ken Rivard, Selected Photos

Ken Rivard, Selected Photos

For Media Interviews or Speaker Booking Contact

The New York Times:

Boston Grapples With Faneuil Hall, Named for a Slaveholder

NPR:

Boston takes rare step of apologizing for its role in slavery and its lasting harm

Boston Herald:

Peterson: Living up to King’s legacy

Medium:

The Boston Embrace is Great, But Sorrowfully Misplaced

Medium:

A Year Later: A Political Elegy For George Floyd

Medium:

Toward the Death of Spiritual Violence in Boston

Huffington Post:

Why The Detroit 'Uprising' 50 Years Ago Is Worth Remembering

CommonWealth Magazine:

New civics law should spur study of race and urban violence

CommonWealth Magazine:

Make America hate: Trump’s dark message only sows fear and division

The Philadelphia Inquirer:

60 years later, the movement must continue

Medium:

The Ethical Economy of James Baldwin

Articles by Kevin Peterson 

Straddling the public domains of faith, public reason and politics, the Rev. Kevin C. Peterson is a Boston-based activist committed to advancing justice and good works in the public square. Trained and educated as a community activist, a writer, an organizer and a public speaker, Rev. Peterson, founder of the New Democracy Coalition, addresses matters of civic life and democracy through public witness and engagement. He is policy advocate and community and corporate convener. He is a grassroots civic activist comfortable in the classroom and with dialogue on the corners of embattled neighborhoods. Peterson principally focuses upon voter equality, and racial equity for African Americans and Blacks throughout the African-American diaspora. He is proven as gifted in the areas of diversity, equity and inclusion discussions and corporate problem-solving relating to fairness. His sensibilities around fairness is grounded in a Blues-Jazz-and-Gospel-African inflected worldview as exhibited through the life of Jesus, and others like Prathia Hall, James Reeb, John Brown, Dr. Gardner Taylor, John Coltrane, Harriet Tubman, James Baldwin, Nimi Wariboko, Cornel West, Ralph Ellison, Martin Luther King Jr., Billie Holiday, August Wilson, Dr. J, Romare Bearden, Toni Morrison, and C.T. Vivian.

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