Paul Kendrick is the Executive Director of Rust Belt Rising, an organization training Midwest leaders on connecting with working families, winning elections, and delivering change to create thriving communities. Rising leads voter registration programs that have helped thousands of Wisconsin and Michigan voters register.
He and his father published their third book in 2021, Nine Days: The Race to Save Martin Luther King’s Life and Win the 1960 Election, with Farrar, Straus and Giroux. New York Times Book Review wrote, “No brief review can do full justice to the Kendricks’ masterly and often riveting account."
Paul is an adjunct professor at National Louis University in Chicago and an elected Community Representative for the Local School Council of Lincoln Park High School.
Previously, Paul served in President Obama's White House Presidential Personnel Office, recruiting and developing talented, diverse teams of appointees for the Administration. He was a Presidential Appointee as a Special Assistant at the U.S. Department of Education, where he elevated educators' voices and ideas that were working in schools across the country.
He began his career with four years at the Harlem Children's Zone, building their nationally recognized College Success Program from 3 staff members and 130 participants to a team of 29 staff and 760 students, persisting at rates that closed the college retention gap.
During the 2012 campaign, he directed the youth vote in Wisconsin for President Obama and Senator Tammy Baldwin’s campaigns. His program inspired hundreds of young people to volunteer, generating thousands of voter registrations and heralded turnout among college students. Following the campaign, he was an Associate Director on the Presidential Inauguration, training campaign alums to make change in their communities.
As Director of Coalition and Grassroots Engagement for Opportunity Nation, he grew community and business partnerships, as well as a youth leadership program, for a bipartisan, cross-sector campaign to increase opportunity for young people in America. Their campaign put on a national summit on opportunity and helped pass the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act.
In 2018, he worked on Governor J.B. Pritzker’s Illinois campaign, coordinating with Rep. Lauren Underwood’s campaign to help both win.
His articles have appeared in the New York Times, Chicago Tribune, Chicago Sun-Times, Washington Post, USA Today, Fortune, Huffington Post, American Heritage, The Hill, and Talking Points Memo and provided analysis on CNN, MSNBC, CBS News, and WGN-Chicago.
With his father Stephen, he has co-authored two other books on hopeful moments of interracial collaboration in our history: Douglass and Lincoln: How a Revolutionary Black Leader and a Reluctant Liberator Struggled to End Slavery and Save the Union, featured in Kirkus Reviews’ “Best of 2008,” and Sarah’s Long Walk: The Free Blacks of Boston and How Their Struggle for Equality Changed America, which was named among the best nonfiction of 2005 by the Christian Science Monitor.
After earning his bachelor's degree from George Washington University and being awarded the Martin Luther King Award for service that embodies Dr. King's legacy, he earned a Master of Public Administration as a Presidential Administrative Fellow and worked in GW’s Office of Government and Community Affairs.
He serves on boards such as the Chicago youth performing arts organization The Happiness Club and Indivisible Lincoln Park/Lakeview.
Paul and his wife, Kori, live in Chicago with their daughters Elly and Emilia, and two adorable cats.
Harlem Children's Zone College Success Program.