Leonard Harold Zeskind (November 14, 1949 – April 15, 2025) was an American human rights activist. He was president of theInstitute for Research and Education of Human Rights (IREHR), asocial justice andpublic affairs watchdog organization.^[1]

Leonard Harold Zeskind was born inBaltimore, Maryland on November 14, 1949, and grew up mostly in Miami, Florida.^[2] He enrolled at theUniversity of Miami and theUniversity of Kansas, but did not earn a degree.^[2] He was expelled from the University of Kansas for participating in protests against theReserve Officers' Training Corps during theVietnam War.^[2][3] 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.^[4]

Zeskind became a community activist and human rights advocate. He led the Center for Democratic Renewal from 1985 to 1994.^[3] He was known for his research into extreme right, racist, andantisemitic organizations in the United States. In 1998, he was an honoree of theMacArthur Fellows Program.^[3] The Institute for Research and Education of Human Rights served as a resource about such groups and their members when information about them rose dramatically following theJanuary 6 United States Capitol attack.^[5]

He was a lifetime member of theNAACP. He also served on the board of directors of the Petra Foundation and the Kansas City Jewish Community Relations Bureau.

Zeskind wrote the 2009 bookBlood and Politics, about the history of xenophobia andwhite nationalism in American politics.^[2]The New York Times noted his thesis that such views were only growing more mainstream was met with some skepticism at the time, but the book was viewed as increasingly prescient in the years to follow, particularly after the 2017Unite the Right rally and similar events.^[2] In 2025, the book was among those removed from the library of theUnited States Naval Academy as part of theU.S. Department of Defense censorship of DEI-connected material.^[2]

After a marriage to Elaine Cantrell ended in divorce, Zeskind married Carol Smith.^[2] He died from pancreatic cancer at his home inKansas City, Missouri, on April 15, 2025, at the age of 75.^[2][6]

• 1998MacArthur Fellows Program^[3]
• 1992 Petra Foundation Fellowship^[7]

• "Racism, Anti-Semitism and the Murder of Dr. Tiller".The Huffington Post. June 2, 2009. RetrievedJuly 25, 2014.
• Blood and Politics: The History of White Nationalism from the Margins to the Mainstream, Macmillan, 2009,ISBN 978-0-374-10903-5

• Author's website
• "Leonard Zeskind: Blood and Politics",Open Source Audio
• "Right-Wing Extremism Expert Leonard Zeskind Analyzes the Movement That Nurtures Shooters Like Von Brunn and Roeder",Buzzflash, November 6, 2009
• "Leonard Zeskind on the Minutemen",Everyday Citizen, Stuart Elliott, March 19, 2008
• Leonard Zeskind featured on Real Law Radio, Leonard talks with Bob DiCello on the legal news talk radio program, Real Law Radio, about the infiltration of the Tea Party Movement by white supremacists (Podcasts/Saturday March 27, 2010).

• 1949 births
• 2025 deaths
• 20th-century American Jews
• 20th-century American journalists
• 20th-century American male writers
• 20th-century American non-fiction writers
• 21st-century American Jews
• 21st-century American journalists
• 21st-century American male writers
• 21st-century American non-fiction writers
• American community activists
• American human rights activists
• 20th-century American male journalists
• American male non-fiction writers
• Deaths from cancer in Missouri
• Jewish American community activists
• Jewish American journalists
• Jewish American non-fiction writers
• MacArthur Fellows
• Writers from Miami
• Journalists from Miami
• Writers from Baltimore
• Deaths from pancreatic cancer in the United States
• Writers from Kansas City, Missouri
• Welders
• 21st-century American male journalists

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