Leonard Zeskind


Leonard Harold Zeskind was an American journalist and human rights activist. He was president of the Institute for Research and Education of Human Rights, a social justice and public affairs watchdog organization. Zeskind wrote the 2009 book Blood and Politics, about the history of xenophobia and white nationalism in American politics.
WWW leonardzeskind.com

Background

Leonard Harold Zeskind was born in Baltimore, Maryland on November 14, 1949, and grew up mostly in Miami, Florida. He enrolled at the University of Miami and the University of Kansas, but did not earn a degree. He was expelled from the University of Kansas for participating in protests against the Reserve Officers' Training Corps during the Vietnam War. For thirteen years prior to his concentration on human rights, he worked in industry, including stints on an automobile assembly line, installing refrigerator motors in vending machines, and as a welder and first-class fitter in steel fabrication plants.

Career

Zeskind became a community activist and human rights advocate. He led the Center for Democratic Renewal from 1985 to 1994. He was known for his research into extreme right, racist, and antisemitic organizations in the United States. In 1998, he was an honoree of the MacArthur Fellows Program. The Institute for Research and Education of Human Rights served as a resource about such groups and their members when information about them rose dramatically following the January 6 United States Capitol attack.
He was a lifetime member of the NAACP. He also served on the board of directors of the Petra Foundation and the Kansas City Jewish Community Relations Bureau.
Zeskind wrote the 2009 book Blood and Politics, about the history of xenophobia and white nationalism in American politics. The New York Times noted his thesis that such views were only growing more mainstream was met with some skepticism at the time, but the book was viewed as increasingly prescient in the years to follow, particularly after the 2017 Unite the Right rally and similar events. In 2025, the book was among those removed from the library of the United States Naval Academy as part of the U.S. Department of Defense censorship of DEI-connected material.

Personal life and death

After a marriage to Elaine Cantrell ended in divorce, Zeskind married Carol Smith. He died from pancreatic cancer at his home in Kansas City, Missouri, on April 15, 2025, at the age of 75.

Awards

Works

  • ''The Christian Identity Movement: A Theological Justification for Racist and Anti-Semitic Violence''