Paul Kendrick is a proven neighborhood leader driven by serving communities. His experience—from local involvement with his community’s leaders and priorities to shaping policy at the highest level—prepares him to get results for our community.

His career began at the Harlem Children’s Zone, building its heralded college success program. After serving on the 2012 Obama campaign for a year, he brought his policy and community-led perspective on high-quality education to the Obama U.S. Department of Education under Sec. Arne Duncan. Paul elevated the best data-driven strategies from around the country to better prepare our students. 

Paul then served in the Obama White House, recruiting and vetting talent from around the country to best serve domestic agencies.

After returning to the Midwest, Paul served on the Pritzker campaign, proudly helping elect our governor.

He took all he’d learned to lead Rust Belt Rising and train hundreds of Democrats across the Midwest to lead on economic issues and win. During his five years leading Rust Belt Rising, Paul mobilized Chicago volunteers to register over 130,000 voters in battleground states. 

Most recently, as Director of Program Strategy at Hope Chicago, he helped transform South and West Side neighborhoods by providing students and their parents at five South and West Side high schools with debt-free college. 

It was at the Women’s March in 2017 when Paul met the friends who founded the Lakeview, Lincoln Park, and Old Town Indivisible chapter. Over the last eight years, he has engaged neighbors to make an impact on key national and local issues, including protecting health and reproductive care.

As a Community Representative for the Lincoln Park High School Local School Council (LSC), Paul volunteers his educational background to strengthen his neighborhood school, after previously serving on Alcott Elementary’s LSC. Paul has been involved with our community’s neighborhood associations, such as serving on the board of the Park West Neighbors Association.

Paul graduated from George Washington University with a Bachelor of Arts and a Master of Public Administration. He believes in learning from history to shape the future, and is the co-author of three books with his father, most recently publishing Nine Days: The Race to Save Martin Luther King’s Life and Win the 1960 Election. Their previous book was Douglass and Lincoln: How a Revolutionary Black Leader and a Reluctant Liberator Struggled to End Slavery and Save the Union.

He is also an adjunct professor at National Louis University, where he’s taught first-generation college students career development to support them toward their goals. 

Paul and his wife Kori Schulman have two daughters, and they can often be seen at our beloved neighborhood playgrounds. Their family belongs to Sinai Synagogue.