20 Facts About John Kinard

John Robert Edward Kinard was an American social activist, pastor, and museum director.

John Kinard is best known as the director of the Anacostia Museum, a small community museum founded by the Smithsonian Institution in 1967.

The Washington Post said John Kinard was "a passionate believer in the idea that the well-being of black people depends on having a record of their past".

John Kinard was born in November 1936 in Southeast, Washington, DC to Robert Francis and Jessie Beulah John Kinard.

John Kinard attended Dunbar High School but transferred and then graduated from Spingarn High School in 1955.

John Kinard attended Howard University in Washington, DC, for a year and a half, but transferred to Livingstone College in Salisbury, North Carolina.

John Kinard subsequently enrolled at Hood Theological Seminary, earning a Bachelor of Divinity degree in 1963.

John Kinard did so after graduation, becoming a paid staff member of the organization.

John Kinard was later promoted to coordinator of all Operation Crossroads projects in eastern Africa.

John Kinard became a counselor with the Neighborhood Youth Corps, a program established by the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964 to provide work experience for at-risk African American youth and encourage them to stay in school.

John Kinard worked for Southeast Neighborhood House, an organization founded by Dr Dorothy Ferebee to provide medical care and other services to poor African Americans living in Southeast Washington, DC.

Blitzer was deeply impressed by John Kinard, and asked him to meet with Ripley.

When John Kinard walked into Ripley's office, Ripley thanked him for taking the job.

Shocked, John Kinard nonetheless agreed to become the Anacostia Museum's director.

John Kinard was named director of the Anacostia Museum in July 1967.

John Kinard held the position until his death in 1989.

In 1978, John Kinard helped co-found the African American Museum Association, an umbrella group which represented small local African American art, cultural, and history museums across the United States.

John Kinard argued that a national museum would consume donor dollars and out-bid local museums for artifacts and trained staff.

John Kinard suffered from myelofibrosis, a disease in which bone marrow cells become abnormal and create collagenous connective tissue fibers rather than new bone marrow.

John Kinard died on August 5,1989, at Greater Southeast Community Hospital in Washington, DC.