Leonard Zeskind

Leonard Harold Zeskind (November 14, 1949 – April 15, 2025) was an American journalist and human rights activist. He was president of the Institute for Research and Education of Human Rights (IREHR), a social justice and public affairs watchdog organization. He enrolled at the University of Miami and the University of Kansas, but did not earn a degree. 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 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.

Awards 1998 MacArthur Fellows Program

Works The Christian Identity Movement: A Theological Justification for Racist and Anti-Semitic Violence (1986)