A woman on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington holds a billowing "Black Lives Matter" flag. Alex Brandon/AP
Just a few years ago, historian and activist Ibram X. Kendi seemed to be everywhere. At the height of the Black Lives Matter movement, he became one of the leading voices on racism in America—and particularly what he described as antiracism. In 2019, his book How to Be an Antiracist became a bestseller. And later, just months after the death of George Floyd—a Black man killed by a white police officer in Minneapolis—Kendi founded the Center for Antiracist Research at Boston University, receiving $55 million in funding.
But over the last few years, as a backlash grew against the BLM movement, Kendi also came under attack. His ideas urging people to be actively antiracist were often the target of conservative critics fighting against DEI policies and the teaching of critical race theory. Kendi was also accused of mismanaging the antiracism center at BU, which laid off much of its staff before closing last year. (BU cleared Kendi of financial mismanagement.) Kendi now leads another academic project, this time at Howard University’s Institute for Advanced Study, that focuses on racism and the global African diaspora. And next month, Kendi will release a new book called Chain of Ideas: The Origins of Our Authoritarian Age, which examines what’s known as the “great replacement theory” and its links to authoritarian regimes around the world.
As the Trump administration eliminates DEI initiatives and erases parts of Black history throughout the federal government, Kendi places this moment alongside two others in American history: the end of Reconstruction in the 1870s and the racial violence that marked the segregation era during the 1920s. “These are moments in which you had very powerful racist forces who were seeking to eliminate policies and practices and ideas that had been created to bring about more democracy and equity and equality,” Kendi says. “We’re literally right now in a very pitched battle for the future of justice in the United States and, frankly, around the world.”
This is an update of an episode that originally aired in July 2025.
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