Experience

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  Coppin State University

  • Baltimore, Maryland, United States

  • Professor

    • Jan 2024 - Present
    • Baltimore, Maryland, United States

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  Paramount Energy, LLC

  • United States

  • Founder

    • Apr 2023 - Present
    • United States

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  Shird Productions

  • Producer

    • Jan 2020 - Present

  • Producer

    • Jan 2020 - Jan 2020

    This sought-after writer and producer has become the content-expert on using the past to build a better future based on his life experiences. At the tender age of 16, Kevin began his very unorthodox journey of becoming a writer and storyteller and it started with dealing drugs on the streets of Baltimore which led to him serving time in federal and state prison. Since then, Shird has monetized those life lessons by authoring books on social issues and participating in international speaking engagements. He lectures to students at colleges and universities across America on issues like substance abuse prevention, education, public health policy, mass incarceration and re-entry to the community after incarceration. In 2010 he co-founded the Do Right Foundation with award-winning R&B singer Mario, a nonprofit that provided a lifeline to children of addicted parents. During the Obama Administration, Shird was tapped to work on the committee for the White House Office on National Drug Control Policy as well as President Obama’s Clemency Project. Following the Freddie Gray protests and unrest in Baltimore, Shird served as an action consultant to then-Baltimore Mayor Rawlings-Blake’s administration. In 2018 he became an Associate at Johns Hopkins University, where he co-taught a class titled ‘Life and Death in Charm City: Histories of Public Health in Baltimore, 1750 to the present.’ Shird’s investment in activism and advocacy began to make huge returns when writers and film producers approached him about taking his literary work to the Big Screen in Hollywood. In 2019 he founded Shird Productions, a production company that develops and produces exceptional content for film and television.

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  The Colored Waiting Room: Empowering the Original and the New Civil Rights Movements

  • Author

    • Mar 2018 - Present

    THE BOOK - Extraordinary conversations between a confidant of Martin Luther King Jr. and a modern-day activist lead to the game-changing realizations that a second-wave civil rights movement is unfolding and that we must embrace the lessons of the past to effect lasting change. In Montgomery, AL, one of the most vibrant and controversial hot spots of the American civil rights movement, Nelson Malden’s barbershop was where its courageous leaders, including his friend Martin Luther King Jr., gathered to organize protests and boycotts and to write the speeches that would help criminalize racial segregation and discrimination. But where there was once the fight against the KKK, today there is the fight against radical white nationalists. Then, there were the murders of Emmett Till, Medgar Evans, and Jimmie Lee Jackson; today there are the killings of Tamir Rice, Freddie Gray, and Trayvon Martin. Then, there was the 16th St. Baptist Church bombing; today there is the Charleston Church massacre. Then, there were the Black Panthers; today there is Black Lives Matter. In The Colored Waiting Room , activist Kevin Shird heads from his hometown of Baltimore, MD to Montgomery to meet eighty-four-year-old Nelson Malden and contextualize the significance of recent racially motivated events, and the demonstrations is Charlottesville, Ferguson, Baltimore, and around the country. The result is a groundbreaking understanding of today’s burgeoning second-wave civil rights movement and the urgent actions necessary for racial equality and change. Here, Shird raises the profound question of whether blacks are still in a colored waiting room, biding their time and waiting for racial equality to be the norm. He also shares compelling personal realizations on the lost connection between African American youth and their ancestors’ fight against slavery and Jim Crow laws, asking throughout this pivotal volume, how far can we go without knowing where we’ve come from?

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  Self-Employed

  • Author | Writer | Speaker | Youth Advocate | Social Entrepreneur

    • Feb 2018 - Present

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  New Book: LESSONS OF REDEMPTION

  • Author/Speaker

    • Jan 2014 - Present

    Kevin Shird is an author, national youth advocate and inspirational speaker dedicated to helping youth understand and escape the perils of a street culture that destroys so many lives and families. As such he has helped thousands of young people growing up in families where their parents are addicted to illegal drugs, prescription drugs, and other abused substances. Kevin speaks about these topics from his personal experience. He began dealing drugs in Baltimore, Maryland at 16 and served almost 12 years in California and federal prison. Drawing on these experiences, he has become an advocate for young people and policy changes around the nation. Kevin lectures to students at colleges and universities across the country on substance abuse prevention, public health policy, incarceration, and re-entry to the community after imprisonment. In his lectures, he tells his personal story of "Redemption" and how one can walk through fire and emerge on the other side to inspire others to live better lives. Recently, Kevin published his memoir Lessons of Redemption, where he tells the gritty story of his life in an inner city neighborhood, living with a substance-abusing parent, being entangled in heroin trafficking, the death of his friend and incarceration. But then he discovered how to re-establish himself as a loving father, citizen, and strong advocate for youth. Through his inspirational story and his work, Kevin has become a buffer and beacon of hope for thousands of young people across America.

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  Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health

  • Baltimore, Maryland Area

  • Associate

    • Aug 2018 - Jan 2020
    • Baltimore, Maryland Area

    Co-teaching a MPH class on the history of Baltimore

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  The Do Right Foundation

  • Co-Founder and President

    • May 2008 - May 2013

    Areas of Oversight: Development, Communications, Government Relations, Policy Advocacy, Strategic Partnerships & InitiativesPolicy Advocacy - Develops planning and implementation of strategies devoted to galvanizing policy makers, practitioners, organizational stakeholders, and community members around issues of direct impact to MDRF. Initiates consultation, as appropriate with government and non-government agencies to inform larger policy agendas and priorities. Program Planning & Evaluation - Oversees program development, strategic planning, assessment and program evaluation.

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  Center for Urban Families

  • Baltimore, Maryland Area

  • Workforce Development Consultant

    • Jan 2009 - May 2010
    • Baltimore, Maryland Area

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  Bon Secour Community Support Center

  • Financial Advisor

    • Dec 2007 - Jan 2009