​
Love as the Practice of Freedom

"The moment we choose to love we begin to move against domination, against oppression. The moment we choose to love we begin to move towards freedom, to act in ways that liberate ourselves and others. That action is the testimony of love as the practice of freedom."
​
                                                                                                                                                   -bell hooks, Outlaw Culture (2006)
"The land is our greatest teacher. In the soil, we find not just food but the stories, healing, and liberation of our people."
                                                                                                                                                    - Leah Penniman, Soul Fire Farms
🔹 Born into a Legacy of Love & Justice

I was born in 1975 on the southeast side of Gainesville, Florida—on the other side of the Civil Rights Movement, yet still well within its shadows.

My grandparents, Lonnie Mae and Richard Harrison, served as First Lady and Pastor of Faith Missionary Baptist Church. They showed up for our people during births, weddings, illness, and loss—despite coming of age in the darkness of American Apartheid. That deep, embodied commitment to love and justice runs through my family line.

My mother, Shirley Ann, was a nurse, an entrepreneur, and a community activist with the National Action Network. My father, who left school in middle school, confronted segregation head-on. For sitting at a whites-only lunch counter, he was brutally beaten—his ribs broken, his hair set on fire, and his body thrown beside a dumpster.

Still, I grew up in a home pulsing with joyful anthems—Aretha, James Cleveland, Shirley Caesar. Marvin Gaye. Nina Simone. Luther and Al. Curtis and Stevie. Teddy and Bill. The Isley Brothers. The Commodores. Earth, Wind & Fire. And, a whole other canon of blues and jazz. I was born with these soundtracks of soul and survival, and I grew up with big questions. Deep ones.

The works of Fanon, Freire, Du Bois, hooks, Baldwin, and King helped me understand how schooling—especially in a culture of white supremacy—often reproduces the inequities found in the broader society. I have come to understand that the deepest forms of learning puts you at odds with these forces--externally and internally.

While much of where I’m from remains unchanged, during my sophomore year of college, I made a choice rooted in self-determination—kujichagulia. I named myself for myself: from Robert Lee Minter, Jr. to Kaleb Rashad, breaking free from the manacles of inherited scripts. This name--Kaleb Rashad—is my freedman’s name: a declaration of agency and authorship, a reclamation of identity, and a step in the right direction.
I am still learning.
​Still growing.
​Still unlearning.
Still listening.
Still loving.
Still fighting for a world where learning is liberatory, where justice is joyful, and where love is not just a value--but a daily practice of human dignity and decency.

I was not born into power or privilege, but into a certain kind of presence--a way of being bound by an ethos of creative non-compliance and joyful resistance. We are threads in a story not shaped by scarcity, but rather by a spirit of abundance, courage, and possibility. A spirit of uncompromising, rebellious commitment to live free and love hard. 

I carry ancestral lessons in these bones, their prayers in my breath. When Kendrick wrote, "I got loyalty, got royalty inside my DNA," I feel all of that. Not a crown of conquest, but a more sacred inheritance of jubilant imagination, passed down through generations, to critically and creatively participate in the transformation of this world together (ubuntu). 

This is where I'm from, from.
​And, this is what I'm made for. 


Stoking Joyful Resistance Everywhere

Dr. Kaleb "Kofi" Rashad

​Father & Husband | Creative Director, Center for Love & Justice | Former CEO, High Tech High | President, Unlocked Inc. | Doctorate in Educational Leadership (Organizational Change & Relational Trust) | Community-Based Liberatory Designer | Global Son of the Diaspora | Ma’at-Guided Buddhist in the Thích Nhất Hạnh Tradition
🔹 Life's Purpose

My purpose in this life is to awaken and accompany others in the courageous work of becoming fully human--by nurturing justice, stoking creativity, and building beloved community across generations and geographies--wherever people are dreaming of a better way.
🔹 Short Professional Bio

Dr. Kaleb "Kofi" Rashad is the former CEO of High Tech High and the Founding Creative Director of the Center for Love & Justice, where he’s helped students, educators, families, and organizers design ecosystems of innovation rooted in justice, joy, and collective belonging.

Kaleb began his career as a middle school teacher and school principal. His academic grounding is in Human Development, Educational Leadership, and Organizational Change—with a deep focus on relational trust.

He is also the host of Joyzistance Radio, a podcast that celebrates creativity, resistance, and the everyday pursuit of freedom. Whether he’s co-creating new schools, supporting local movements, or mentoring the next generation of leaders, Kaleb’s work is anchored in a single truth: liberation is love made public.

Design for Creativity, Equity, & Innovation (You can do it!!) 

​1. Codesigning School |Tools for Creating Equitable Change in Your School
2. Launch DesignCamp in Your Space! | Create. A. Movement.  
3. CenterforLoveandJustice.org | Co-Design School for Love, Justice & Collective Liberation
Research
My dissertation research focused on what do school leaders say, do, and create to develop relational trust, a keystone resource for initiating and sustaining change, among teachers and adults within learning communities.


Creative Strengths
Visionary: Imaging the Impossible-->Full of big ideas, ability to see potential and possibilities everywhere


StrengthsFinder 2.0 (latest go round, 2019)
Maximizer | Empathy | Strategic | Connectedness | Developer


StrengthsFinder 2.0 (used to be)
Positivity | Relator | Empathy | Communication | Woo


16Personalities:
ENFP-A "The Campaigner"

​
Ancestral Connections
Origins: West Africa: Yoruba & Western Bantu Peoples 
Nigeria, Congo, Mali, Senegal, Northwestern Europe, Ghana
​​Recent Engagements & Contributions​

Badassery on the Bookshelf

Afro-Indigenous Ways

  1. The Afrocentric Praxis of Teaching for Freedom: Connecting Culture to Learning
  2. Cultural Action for Freedom
  3. Critical Indigenous African Education and Knowledge
  4. Critical Pedagogy of Place: 
  5. Decolonizing Education: Nourishing the Learning Spirit
  6. Decolonizing Methodologies, 2nd Ed.
  7. Sand Talk: How Indigenous Ways of Thinking Can Save the World 
  8. The Push for African-Centered Education

Pedagogy
​
  1. ​An Ethic of Excellence​​
  2. The Book of Learning and Forgetting
  3. Boarding School Seasons: American Indian Families, 1900-1940
  4. ​Changing the Subject
  5. Child and Curriculum 
  6. Creative Schools
  7. Cultivating Genius
  8. Cultural Action for Freedom 
  9. Educating for Eco-Justice and Community​​
  10. Education and Experience
  11. Education for Extinction: American Indian and the Boarding School Experience, 1875-1928
  12. Everyday AntiRacism 
  13. ​The Education of Black People
  14. The Education of Blacks in the South, 1860-1935
  15. ​The Education of the Negro
  16. ​Feel-Bad Education
  17. For White Folks Who Teach in the Hood and The Rest of Y'all Too
  18. ​Fugitive Pedagogy 
  19. Ghosts in the Schoolyard
  20. Highlander: No Ordinary School
  21. Hip Hop Genius
  22. History of Black Studies 
  23. Invent to Learn
  24. Kill the Indian, Save the Man: The Genocidal Impact of American Indian Residential Schools
  25. Learner-Centered Innovation
  26. ​Let's Do This: The Art of Getting School Right
  27. ​Make 
  28. The MisEducation of the Negro
  29. Most Likely to Succeed
  30. Multiplication is for White People" Raising Expectations for Other People's Children
  31. The Myles Horton Reader: Education for Social Change
  32. Out of Our Minds
  33. On Critical Pedagogy
  34. Pedagogy of Critical Consciousness
  35. ​Pedagogy of Freedom: Ethics, Democracy, and Civic Courage 
  36. Pedagogy of Heart
  37. Pedagogy of Hope​
  38. Pedagogy of Indignation 
  39. ​Pedagogy of the Oppressed
  40. ​Plantation Pedagogy 
  41. ​The Power of Place​
  42. Punished by Rewards
  43. Race, Culture, and the City
  44. Ratchatdemic: Reimagining Academic Success 
  45. Reinventing Paulo Freire: A Pedagogy of Love
  46. Seed + Spark
  47. ​Schooling Beyond Measure
  48. Schooling for Critical Consciousness
  49. Teachers as Intellectuals
  50. Teaching Community: A Pedagogy of Hope 
  51. Teaching Critical Thinking: Practical Wisdom
  52. Teaching to Transgress 
  53. We Make the Road by Walking
  54. ​We Want To Do More Than Survive
  55. When Black Students Excel: How Schools Can Engage and Empower Black Students 
​

​
Change Leadership
  1. 13 Days: A Memoir of the Cuban Missile Crisis 
  2. The 4 Pivots
  3. Adaptive Leadership
  4. The Adaptive School
  5. The Achievement Habit
  6. A More Beautiful Question
  7. The Art of Gathering
  8. The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and The Horse
  9. Brainstorm
  10. ​Bringing Innovation to School
  11. Change Forces With a Vengeance 
  12. Change Leadership
  13. Creating Innovators
  14. Creativity: The Perfect Crime
  15. ​​Design Leadership
  16. Design Thinking for Strategic Innovation
  17. Dialogue
  18. Disrupting Class
  19. ​​#Edjourney
  20. ​Emergent Strategy
  21. The End of Average
  22. The Field Guide to Human Centered Design
  23. ​Five Minds for the Future
  24. Good People: The Only Leadership Decision That Really Matters
  25. ​The Fourth Industrial Revolution
  26. Holding Change
  27. How: Why How We Do Anything Means Everything
  28. Immunity to Change
  29. Inner Work of Racial Justice
  30. Ingenius
  31. The Innovator's Dilemma
  32. The Leader's Guide to 21st Century Education
  33. Let's Do This: The Art of Getting School Right
  34. Little Bets
  35. The Magic of Conflict
  36. Needfinding: Design Research and Planning
  37. The Rise of the Creative Class
  38. Rise of the DEO
  39. Rise of the Robots
  40. Schools on Trial
  41. Six Secrets of Change
  42. Start with Why
  43. Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln
  44. The Storyteller’s Secret
  45. The Surprising Power of Liberating Structures
  46. The Third Industrial Revolution
  47. Tribal Leadership
  48. Who Do We Choose to Be?
  49. A Whole New Mind
  50. Wired to Care
​​

Historical Perspectives
  1. A Book of the Beginnings 
  2. Adventures of An African Slaver 
  3. African Heroes and Heroines 
  4. African Myths and Folk Tales 
  5. The African Origin of Civilization: Myth or Reality 
  6. An Afro-Indigenous History of the United States 
  7. American Apartheid
  8. ​American Negro Slavery: A Survey of the Supply, Employment, and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime
  9. American Slavery As It Is
  10. An American Genocide: The US and California Indian Catastrophe 
  11. Ancient Egypt: The Light of the World 
  12. An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States
  13. Barracoon: The Story of the Last "Black Cargo"
  14. The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L'Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution
  15. Black Majority
  16. Black Reconstruction in America, 1860-1880
  17. ​The Black Tax
  18. Born in Blackness: Africa, Africans and the Making of the Modern World 1471 to the Second World War 
  19. Caste
  20. The Chronicle of the Discovery of and Conquest of New Guinea
  21. Collective Courage
  22. The Colonizer and the Colonized
  23. Color of Law
  24. The Columbian Orator
  25. Critical Race Theory
  26. Crusade for Justice: The Autobiography of Ida B. Wells
  27. David Walker's Appeal ​
  28. The Delectable Negro
  29. ​The Destruction of Black Civilization
  30. Deterrent or Defense 
  31. Democracy in America
  32. Egyptian Book of the Dead: The Book of Going Forth by Day
  33. The End of White World Supremacy
  34. Favorite African Folklore 
  35. Frederick Douglass
  36. From a Native Daughter: Colonialism & Sovereignty in Hawai'i 
  37. Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019
  38. Great Kingdoms of Africa
  39. History of the Moorish Empire: In Europe, Vol 1 of 3
  40. History of White People
  41. In the Matter of Color: Race and the American Legal Process​
  42. It Wasn't About Slavery​
  43. Jeanes Teachers: A View Into Black Education in the Jim Crow South
  44. The Jewish State
  45. John Brown: An American Abolitionist 
  46. King Leopold's Ghost
  47. The Mark of Oppression: Explorations in the Personality of the Negro
  48. Mansa Musa and Timbuktu: A Fascinating History from Beginning to End
  49. Mansa Musa and Timbuktu: The History of the West African Emperor and Medieval Africa's Most Fabled City
  50. Marse: A Psychological Portrait of the Southern Slave Master and His Legacy of White Supremacy   
  51. Moor Vol. I and II
  52. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
  53. The Nation that Never Was: Reconstructing America's History 
  54. The Negro in Our History 
  55. ​Negro Orators & Their Orations
  56. The New Jim Crow
  57. ​​No Struggle, No Progress
  58. Notes of a Native Son
  59. Notes on the State of Virginia
  60. ​The Peculiar Institution 
  61. ​Precolonial Black Africa
  62. ​Racism without Racists
  63. The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks​
  64. ​Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877
  65. Saltwater Slavery
  66. SBA: The Reawakening of the African Mind
  67. ​Segregation by Design
  68. Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States
  69. The Story of the Moors in Spain: A History of the Moorish Empire in Europe, Their Conquest, Book of Laws and Code of Rites
  70. The Souls of Black Folks
  71. Southern Slavery & the Law, 1619-1860 (Studies in Legal History) 
  72. The Spook Who Sat by the Door  
  73. Stamped From The Beginning
  74. States from Interviews with Former Slaves
  75. Stolen Legacy: Greek Philosophy is Stolen Egyptian Philosophy 
  76. Stroud's Slave Laws: A Sketch of the Laws Relating to Slavery in the Several States of the United States of America 
  77. The Struggle is Eternal: Gloria Richardson and Black Liberation 
  78. ​The Sum of Us
  79. Team of Rivals 
  80. Toussaint Louverture: The Story of the Only Successful Slave Revolt in History; A Play in Three Acts 
  81. UNESCO General History of Africa Vol I: Methodology & African Prehistory 
  82. The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration 
  83. Where White Men Fear to Tread: The Autobiography of Russell Means
  84. White Fragility
  85. White Rage
  86. Without Sanctuary: Lynching Photography in America
  87. The Willie Lynch Letter & the Making of a Slave
  88. Wonderful Ethiopians of the Ancient Cushite Empire​​
Organizational Culture
​
  1. 10 Faces of Innovation
  2. 101 Design Methods
  3. An Everyone Culture 
  4. Blue Ocean Strategy
  5. ​Building a Storybrand
  6. Change by Design
  7. ​Chief Joy Officer
  8. Collective Genius
  9. Creative Acts for Courageous People
  10. ​​Creative Confidence
  11. Creativity, Inc.
  12. The Culture Cod
  13. Emotional Design
  14. Designing for Belonging 
  15. ​​Designing for Growth: A Toolkit for Managers
  16. Design Sprint
  17. Design Thinking for Strategic Innovation
  18. ​Design Thinking for the Greater Good
  19. Deviate
  20. Drive
  21. ​Firms of Endearment
  22. Good People
  23. How Google Works
  24. This is Marketing
  25. ​​​The Innovators Mindset
  26. The Innovator's Solution
  27. The Innovators
  28. Let the Elephants Run
  29. ​Launch
  30. Linchpin
  31. The Little Book of Innovation
  32. No Rules Rules
  33. ​The One Thing
  34. Open
  35. Orbiting the Giant Hairball
  36. The Purpose Economy 
  37. Radical Candor
  38. ​Rituals for Work
  39. ​Show Your Work
  40. Six Secrets of Change 
  41. The Sketchbook Handbook
  42. Solving Problems with Design Thinking
  43. Spirit Work and the Science of Collaboration 
  44. Split Screen Strategy: Improvement + Innovation
  45. Steal Like an Artist
  46. Strengths Finder 2.0
  47. ​​Superbetter
  48. ​The Talent Code
  49. ​​​ThinkWrong
  50. Time, Talent, and Energy 
  51. ​Unleashed
  52. Work Rules! ​  
  53. Zig Zag​

Philosophy (Love, Justice, Liberation) 
​​
  1. 7 Years
  2. A Better Life for the Children: Julius Rosenwald, Booker T. Washington, and the 4,978 that Changed America 
  3. Abraham Joshua Heschel: A Life of Radical Amazement 
  4. African Philosophy 
  5. The Afrocentric Manifesto 
  6. The Afrocentric Praxis of Teaching for Freedom: Connecting Culture to Learning 
  7. All About Love
  8. ​The Alchemist
  9. The Art of War
  10. An Invitation to Freedom
  11. ​A Promised Land
  12. A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose
  13. Another Country
  14. Autobiography of Malcolm X
  15. Be Here Now
  16. ​Becoming 
  17. Becoming Human
  18. Becoming Wise: An Inquiry into the Mystery and Art of Living
  19. Begin Again
  20. Belonging: A Culture of Place
  21. ​Between the World and Me
  22. The Black Jacobins
  23. ​Black Lives Matter Story
  24. Black Movements in America
  25. ​Black Marxism
  26. ​Black Noise
  27. Black Prophetic Fire
  28. Black Power: The Politics of Liberation
  29. Black Skin, White Masks
  30. The Book on the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are
  31. Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself
  32. Brothers in the Beloved Community: The Friendship of Thich Nhat Hanh & Martin Luther King, Jr. 
  33. Blues People
  34. Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself
  35. ​The Burning House
  36. Christopher Columbus and the Afrikan Holocaust
  37. Civil Disobedience
  38. The Civil Rights Road to Deeper Learning: Five Essentials of Equity 
  39. The Colored Conventions Movement
  40. The Courage to Be
  41. ​Culture & Resistance
  42. Creative Quest
  43. Decolonization and the Decolonized 
  44. Decolonizing the Mind
  45. Decolonizing Wealth 
  46. Democracy Matters
  47. ​Design Justice 
  48. Design the Life You Love
  49. ​Detours
  50. The Devil You Know
  51. ​Dignity of Difference
  52. Ella Baker 
  53. Eloquent Rage
  54. ​​Farming While Black
  55. ​Finding the Mother Tree
  56. The Fire Next Time
  57. Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom
  58. Freedom Dreams
  59. Freedom Farmers
  60. Fugitive Science: Empiricism and Freedom in Early African American Culture 
  61. God in Search of Man
  62. Guerrilla Warfare
  63. Freedom is a Constant Struggle
  64. The Healing Power of Education: Afrocentric Pedagogy as a Tool for Restoration and Liberation
  65. The Healing Wisdom of Africa 
  66. Heritage Knowledge in the Curriculum: Retrieving an African Episteme 
  67. Homecoming: Overcome Fear & Trauma to Reclaim Your Whole Authentic Self
  68. Homecoming: Overcome Fear and Trauma and Reclaim Your Whole Authentic Self 
  69. ​How to Be An AntiRacist
  70. ​Identity & Violence
  71. ​Ikigai: The Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy Life
  72. Inner Engineering 
  73. The Inner Work of Racial Justice
  74. Inward
  75. An Invitation to Freedom
  76. Finding the Mother Tree: Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest
  77. ​Just Mercy
  78. The Healing Wisdom of Africa
  79. ​Leaves of Grass
  80. ​Leonardo Da Vinci​
  81. Living Untethered 
  82. ​​Love Does
  83. The Love Prescription 
  84. Maat Guiding Principles of Moral Living 
  85. ​The Market Gardner
  86. MDW NTR: Divine Speech: A Historiographical Reflection of African Deep Thought from the Times of the Pharaoh to the Present  
  87. Meditations 
  88. Memories, Dreams, & Reflections
  89. ​More Than Just Race
  90. Opening the Door of Your Heart
  91. ​The Ordeal of Mansart
  92. Our Word is Our Weapon
  93. ​Outlaw Culture
  94. Out of Your Mind
  95. Plato's Five Dialogues
  96. Pleasure Activism: The Politics of Pleasure
  97. Prophesy Deliverance! 
  98. The Power of No
  99. The Power of Now
  100. Race Matters
  101. Radical Dharma 
  102. The Radical King
  103. Raja Yoga or Conquering the Internal Nature
  104. Reach for Greatness
  105. Rest is Resistance: A Manifesto
  106. ​The Road to Unfreedom
  107. Salvation: Black People and Love
  108. Seeking the Sakhu: Foundation Writings for a African Psychology
  109. Self-Taught: African American Education in Slavery and Freedom​
  110. The Solace of Open Spaces
  111. So You Want to Talk about Race
  112. The Spirit of Intimacy
  113. Strength to Love
  114. Surrender White People
  115. Tales of a Shaman's Apprentice
  116. Tao Te Ching 
  117. The Tao of Wu​
  118. ​The Third Reconstruction
  119. The Trumpet of Conscience 
  120. Understanding an Afrocentric Worldview
  121. The Universe Story
  122. Wages of Rebellion 
  123. ​Walking with the Wind
  124. The Way of Zen
  125. We Are Each Other's Harvest
  126. We Do This til it Free Us: Abolitionist Organizing and Transforming Justice 
  127. When God Winks 
  128. Where Do We Go From Here
  129. Why I am a Buddhist 
  130. Why I am No Longer Talking to White People About Race
  131. Why We Can't Wait
  132. Why We're Polarized 
  133. The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love
  134. The Wisdom of Insecurity
  135. Works of Love
  136. ​The Wretched of the Earth
  137. You're It



Fiction 
  1. Beloved 
  2. Crime and Punishment 
  3. False Memory 
  4. Keats: Poems Published in 1820
  5. The Man Who Lived Underground
  6. The Martian 
  7. Notes of a Native Son
  8. Phantoms
  9. Velocity 
  10. War & Peace
  11. The Water Dancer


Seminal Research & Resolutions (follow the links). 
  1. UNITED NATIONS | Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948)
  2. UNITED NATIONS | ​International Decade for People of African Descent, 2015-2024
  3. ​UNITED NATIONS | Advancing implementation of the Agenda towards transformative change for racial justice and equality (2023)
  4. UNITED NATIONS | Promotion and protection of the human rights and fundamental freedoms of Africans and of people of African descent against excessive use of force and other human rights violations by law enforcement officers through transformative change for racial justice and equality (2023)
  5. UNITED NATIONS | Seminal UN report offers an agenda to dismantle systemic racism (2021).
  6. UNITED NATIONS | Statement to the media by the United Nations’ Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent, on the conclusion of its official visit to USA (2016)
  7. PETITION to the UN | Appeal to the World! A statement on the Denial of Human Rights to Minorities in the Case of Citizens of Negro Descent in the United States of America and an Appeal to the United States for Redress by W.E. Burghardt Du Bois (NAACP, 1947)
  8. AB3121 CALIFORNIA REPARATIONS REPORT (2023)

  9. ABCs of Equity 
  10. ​​Afrocentric Curriculum
  11. ​Antiracist Pedagogy 
  12. ​The Case for Reparations ​
  13. The Colorblindness Trap: How the Civil Rights Ideal Got Hijacked
  14. ​​Continuum on Becoming an Antiracist, Multicultural Organization
  15. Critical Consciousness: A Key to Student Achievement 
  16. A Critical Pedagogy of Place
  17. ​Critical Race Theory
  18. ​Cultivating Aloha 'Aina Through Critical Indigenous Pedagogies of Place​​
  19. ​​Lynching in America 
  20. Reconstruction in America​
  21. ​Segregation in America 
Where do we go from here
​
"Power properly understood is to achieve purpose. Power without love is reckless and abusive, and love without power is sentimental and anemic. Power at its best is LOVE implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is power correcting everything that stands against love."

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           --Martin Luther King, Jr. 
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