About Ron Kipling Williams

  

Ron Kipling Williams is a political spoken word/performance artist, human rights activist/organizer, and independent journalist.

He has made several radio, television, cable and internet talk show appearances throughout the mid-Atlantic region as a spoken word artist, political commentator and freelance journalist, alongside with such notables as Mary Carter Smith and Dick Gregory.

Ron organizes with human rights organizations such as the United Workers, Gimmie Shelter, and is on board with the newly formed Black Male Identity Project, a collaborative effort between Art on Purpose, the Maryland Humanities Council, Open Society Institute (OSI), the Maryland State Arts Council, the Cohen Opportunity Fund at the Associated, and local community activist organizations.

In 1995, Ron received an African American Unsung Hero Award by Baltimore Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke for his work as an artist and activist. In 2011, he won the United Workers Human Rights Champion of the Year Award.

He has performed in major local venues including ArtScape, Center Stage, the Baltimore Museum of Art, Theater Project, and the Baltimore Book Festival.

Ron won the 1998 Maryland State Arts Council Individual Artist Grant for Solo Performance for his one man show, If the World Were Like Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids, which received critical acclaim along the college circuit on the east coast. His current multimedia one man show, Aware and Outraged, was launched in 2005.

He has performed with the Arena Players, The Baltimore Theater Project, The American Theater Project, and the DC Coalition against Domestic Violence.

In 2006 Ron founded the Radical Artist Movement, a socio-political edutainment band of spoken word artists and musicians dedicated to incite, inspire, inform and agitate citizens into collective action for fundamental change.

In 2008 he became allies with Gimmie Shelter Productions, a collective of poets, musicians, painters, and dancers who through their work over 15 years have been helping the underserved in Baltimore City.

Ron has served as organizer for social justice festivals and events such as the 2007 Alternate ROOTS Creative Convergence Festival, the James Baldwin Literary Society (JAMBALITSO) 2008 and 2010 celebrations, and the Gimmie Shelter Benefit for the United Workers.

He has lectured and facilitated workshops in Baltimore City Schools and community outreach programs focusing on journalism, youth apprenticeship and life skills training. In 2008, Ron launched Out of the Box, a workshop that focuses on holistic coping strategies geared toward academic, corporate, and other workforce environments.

Ron has written for major Baltimore publications including the Baltimore Times and the Baltimore Indypendent Reader, a social justice print and on-line media project. He runs his own artist/activist blog site, http://www.awareandoutraged.com.

In 2011 he released his debut CD, Aware and Outraged: Silence is for Suckers, available for purchase on http://www.cdbaby.com.