Kristin Richardson Jordan (KRJ) is a third-generation Harlemite who has known Harlem since she was four months old. She is the daughter of Dr. Lynne Richardson and Dr. Desmond Jordan, two minority physicians who trained at the historic Harlem Hospital.
Her father, Dr. Desmond A. Jordan, just passed this past November 2020. He is deeply missed.
Growing up Kristin (KRJ) was in and out of Lenox Terrace where her great aunt was an original tenant and where Kristin herself lives now. She attended the Calhoun School where she graduated cum laude with distinction in Social Studies, Spanish, Mathematics, Science, and Music. She then attended Brown University where she graduated class of 2009 as a double major in in Black Studies (“Africana”) and Literary Arts and was a commencement speaker for the Africana Studies department.
Kristin (KRJ) is a book printing poet, teaching artist, author, and activist in the Harlem community, where her mother is also from and lives, where her great aunt (as mentioned above) was from and lived, and where her grandparents (married at Abyssinia Baptist Church) lived – 3 generations of Harlem.
Kristin Richardson Jordan (KRJ) has published her own (and others) work by starting an independent publishing company called Pens Up Press, for literary activists generally, and Black and Latino activists in particular to publish and promote books for and about making a better world.
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