Ken Blackwell

Ambassador Ken Blackwell is a best-selling author and a visiting professor at the Liberty University School of Law. He is a contributing editor for Townhall.com, and a public affairs commentator for the Salem Radio Network. His commentaries have been carried in major newspapers and web-sites across the United States, including The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, The New York Times, The Washington Post , Investor's Business Daily, and FoxNews.com. His latest book is the highly acclaimed, RESURGENT: How Constitutional Conservatism Can Save America (Simon and Schuster, 2011).

Mr. Blackwell is a Fellow at the Family Research Council and the American Civil Rights Union. He serves on the Board of Directors of various high-profile organizations including the Timothy Plan ( a Mutual Fund), the International Foundation for Electoral Systems, the United States Air Force Academy Foundation , the Club for Growth, the National Rife Association, and the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Board of Advisors,of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA).

He is also Senior Advisor to Securing America's Future Energy (SAFE), an organization dedicated to improving U.S. economic and national security through reduced oil dependence.

Mr. Blackwell has had a vast political career. He was mayor of Cincinnati, Treasurer and Secretary of State for Ohio, undersecretary at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Human Rights Commission. Mr. Blackwell was a delegate to the White House Summit on Retirement Savings in 1998 and 2002. During the 1990s, he served on the congressionally appointed National Commission on Economic Growth and Tax Reform and the board of the International Republican Institute. He was Co-Chairman of the U.S. Census Monitoring Board from 1999-2001.

He has received many awards and honors for his work in the public sector. These accolades include the U.S. Department of State’s Superior Honor Award for his work in the field of human rights which he received from both the administrations of Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton. In 2004, the American Conservative Union and the Ashbrook Center for Public Affairs honored Mr. Blackwell with the John M. Ashbrook Award for his steadfast conservative leadership. In 2002, he received meritorious recognition from the Center for Digital Government, and was recognized by Government Technology magazine as one of the top 25 public sector leaders in information technology.

Mr. Blackwell was a founding partner of the highly successful Blue Chip Broadcasting Company, a network of 20 urban format radio stations. At the time of its sale in 2001, Blue Chip Broadcasting had become the second largest African-American owned radio company in the nation.

He has been a Fellow at Harvard University’s Institute of Politics, the Heritage Foundation, the Aspen Institute, the Salzburg Seminar in Austria and the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University (British-American Project). His continuing education has included executive programs at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard. Mr. Blackwell has also received honorary doctoral degrees from ten institutions of higher education. He holds Bachelor of Science and Master of Education degrees from Xavier University (OH), where he later served as a vice president and member of its faculty. In 1992, he received Xavier’s Distinguished Alumnus Award.

He and his wife, Rosa, have been married for 45 years.