B. Kwaku Duren

(1943-)

American lawyer

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B. Kwaku Duren (born April 14, 1943; a.k.a., Robert Donaldson Duren and Bob D. Duren) is a controversial African American former lawyer, educator, writer, editor, Black Panther, long-time social, political and community activist; and a former convict who now lives and practices law in South Central Los Angeles. He has run for United States Congress three times and once for Vice President of the United States. As a young man, he spent nearly five years in California prisons for armed robbery. He began reading extensively and taking college classes while incarcerated and after his parole in the fall of 1970, he founded and chaired the National Poor People's Congress. A couple of years later, he and his younger sister, Betty Scott, along with Mary Blackburn and other community activists, founded an alternate school – the Intercommunal Youth Institute (1972–1975) – in Long Beach, California.