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Richard Kenyada
Richard Kenyada is a Vietnam War veteran, who recently retired after a 45-year career in engineering. He was also a community activist in the area of computer literacy (1998-2007) ...view moreRichard Kenyada is a Vietnam War veteran, who recently retired after a 45-year career in engineering. He was also a community activist in the area of computer literacy (1998-2007) and through his non-profit organization, Mr. Kenyada’s Neighborhood, he created an award-winning program PC’s to the People, which provided free computers to disadvantaged children, and free computer training to seniors. But it was as an author that he found a new audience.
One of the essays from Kenyada’s first book, essays & open wounds while waiting for The APOLOGY, has become reference material for college courses and other authors. Flesh Tone Bandages & Other White Privileges was required reading for two courses at the University of Utah - Cross Cultural Psychology & the Ethnic Studies course of the Pacific Islander American Experience. Interracial... Record Buying, another piece, is referenced in a new book about black music, Soul Covers by Michael Awkward. Love, Lena Horne, is an essay dedicated to Kenyada's father, Buddy, and his lifelong cherished memory of a dance he shared with Lena Horne. This charming anecdote is included in a 2004 book about the diva's life titled, Stormy Weather: The Life of Lena Horne by James Gavin. Of course, the Kenyada essay titled, The APOLOGY, which was adapted as the finale for the stage production Maafa Suite in 1997, and toured the county through 2004, achieved the greatest success.
Kenyada followed his literary maiden voyage with Reflections in the Dark Room: The Black Essays, which included Inauguration Ball 2009, a celebration of the Barack Obama victory he wrote one week before the 2008 presidential election. The essay went viral on the Internet, and was recited at various Obama 2009 Inaugural gatherings, including a recital by Marian Wright Edelman at Birmingham’s historic Sixteenth Street Baptist Church.
Richard Kenyada lives in metro Atlanta with his wife of 22 years, Patricia.view less