Raymond Winbush facts for kids

Raymond Arnold Winbush, also known as Tikari Bioko, was born on March 31, 1948. He is an American scholar and activist. He is known for his special way of thinking about how racism affects people of African descent around the world. He is currently a Research Professor and Director of the Institute for Urban Research at Morgan State University in Baltimore, Maryland.

Biography

Early Life and Education

Raymond Winbush was one of five children. He was the middle of three sons. His father, Harold Winbush, worked in a steel factory in Cleveland, Ohio. His mother, Dorothy Winbush, was a housewife.

In 1948, when Raymond was born, his family faced hard times. They had low wages and unfair treatment because of their race. So, they left Pittsburgh and moved to the east side of Cleveland, Ohio to start fresh.

When Raymond was in elementary school, his art teacher asked him to take a special test. He scored very high on the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Test. His life changed when he was sent by bus to a special school. This school was in a middle-class neighborhood, about seven miles from his home. It was mostly a Jewish neighborhood. By age twelve, Raymond noticed how different his school experiences were from his brothers'. He wrote about his early childhood in his first book, The Warrior Method.

After finishing John Adams High School in Cleveland in 1966, Raymond went to Oakwood College. This college is now called Oakwood University in Huntsville, Alabama. In 1968 and 1969, he won scholarships from the Ford Foundation. These scholarships allowed him to study at Harvard and Yale universities during the summer.

In 1970, Raymond graduated with honors from Oakwood. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in psychology. Later, from 1973 to 1977, he worked at Oakwood College as a professor. He also led the Behavioral Sciences department. Raymond earned his Master of Arts degree in 1973 and his PhD in clinical psychology in 1976. He got these degrees from the University of Chicago.

Career

From 1973 to 1980, Raymond Winbush worked as a professor at Oakwood University and Alabama A&M University. In 1980, he became an assistant provost at Vanderbilt University. He also taught psychology there.

From 1986 to 1989, he was the first director of the Joseph Johnson Black Cultural Center at Vanderbilt. He helped look into how many African-American students were joining and staying at the university.

Between 1975 and 2001, Raymond Winbush worked on many projects. These projects aimed to make people more aware of race relations in America. They also showed how these relations affected Black people. He received money for his work from groups like the National Science Foundation and the Kellogg Foundation.

From 1995 to 2002, Raymond Winbush was a professor at Fisk University in Nashville, TN. He also directed the Race Relations Institute there. Since 2002, he has been a research professor at Morgan State University in Baltimore, Maryland. He also directs the Institute for Urban Research there. In 2002, he helped start the Global Afrikan Congress. This is the largest organization for people of African descent in the world.

In 2005, Raymond Winbush appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show. He was there as an expert on race relations. His books include The Warrior Method: A Program for Rearing Healthy Black Boys, published in 2001. Another book, Should America Pay? Slavery and The Raging Debate on Reparations, came out in 2003.

His book, Belinda's Petition: A Concise History of Reparations For The Transatlantic Slave Trade, was published in 2009. It is a short introduction to the history of payments for the European enslavement of Africans. This book is seen as a "prequel" to Should America Pay?. It shows how the idea of reparations has been important to African people for the past 500 years.

His newest book is The Osiris Papers: Reflections on the Life and Writings of Dr. Frances Cress Welsing. It was published in 2020. In this book, several authors discuss the Black psychiatrist Dr. Frances Cress Welsing. They talk about her ideas on why racism exists.