Dr. Yohuru Williams, founding director of the Racial Justice Initiative at the University of St. Thomas, will join historian and author Ibram X. Kendi for a conversation during the 2026 MinnPost Festival on Saturday, Oct. 10, in Minneapolis.
Williams and Kendi will discuss Kendi’s new book, Chain of Ideas: The Origins of Our Authoritarian Age, including the historical forces explored in the book, where those ideas may lead and what they mean for democracy today.
The conversation is part of MinnPost’s annual festival featuring discussions about politics, policy and issues shaping Minnesota and the nation.
The event reunites Williams and Kendi, who last appeared together in Minnesota at St. Thomas in 2021. Williams hosted a fireside chat with Kendi following his keynote address at the university’s Equity in Action: Cultivating Antiracist Universities conference.
Kendi is director of Howard University’s Institute for Advanced Study and the inaugural Carter G. Woodson Endowed Chair in History. Williams is a distinguished historian and professor of history at St. Thomas whose scholarship and public work focus on civil rights, race, democracy and social justice.
