Kendra Hicks has been involved in many local JP organizations, including the Hyde Square Task Force, Wake Up The Earth Festival, and Spontaneous Celebrations through her 31 years of life. Combine those experiences with her professional career, and Hicks believes she can knock off a longtime incumbent to be the next District 6 City Councilor.
Hicks aims to face incumbent Matt O’Malley in 2021’s election cycle.
“Kendra is a proud first-generation Black Dominican woman, a mother, a wife, and artist. Kendra’s story is the story of District 6, a story about community, creativity, and collective power. Born in the Bronx to a working-class, immigrant mother, Kendra’s family relocated to Jamaica Plain in 1990 and she has since called it home,” says Hicks’ campaign website.
Her 2019 art installation about 11 Black women murdered in 1979 was highlighted by Boston.com.
Her involvement in those JP organizations as a teenager led her to be a “community organizer, artist, and a champion for her community.” As a high school student she co-founded and later became the director of Beantown Society, which works to, “…unite youth in Boston across race, class, culture, and neighborhood to end youth violence,” according to Spontaneous Celebrations’ website.
At Resist, which was founded in 1967, by numerous people including Noam Chomsky, Robert Lowell, and Allen Ginsberg, Hicks fights for racial and economic justice. Hicks is the Co-Director of the organization, and Director of Radical Philanthropy.
Hicks described her work as, “…using her head, heart, and hands to explore how foundations, as a part of the non-profit industrial complex, can be more accountable, emergent and responsive. Pushing them to use their imaginations and expand beyond the realms of possibility towards liberation.”
Editor’s note: This article originally stated that Hicks is the Co-Director of the Resist, and that her campaign website said she is the Director of Resist. Hicks is the Director of Radical Philanthropy and the Co-Director of Resist. Her campaign website states she is the Director of Radical Philanthropy.
