Alexs Pate
*Alexs Pate was born on this date in 1950. He is a Black Author and educator.
He was born in Philadelphia, PA. From 1999 to 201, he was on the University of Southern Maine faculty and an assistant professor at the University of Minnesota. Pate has published five novels to date. His best-known work is the New York Times Bestseller Amistad. His other novels include Finding Makeba, The Multicultiboho Sideshow, and West of Rehoboth, which was the "Honor Fiction Book" for 2002. His first nonfiction book, In The Heart of the Beat: The Poetry of Rap, was published in 2010.
As of 2012, Pate is president and CEO of Innocent Technologies and creator of the Innocent Classroom. He is a New York Times bestselling author who has written five novels, a children’s book, and a nonfiction book and curated numerous literary anthologies. His latest book, The Innocent Classroom: Dismantling Racial Bias for Children of Color, was published by ASCD (August 2020).
Throughout his career, Pate has attacked racial stereotypes that limit the realities of people of color. He has worked to create worlds in which the humanity of everyone is recognized, known, and finally assumed. Pate founded Innocent Technologies to build a world where we can live our authentic humanity, uninhibited by the stories about who we should be. The success of the Innocent Classroom has led to the development of Innocent Classroom for Early Childhood Educators and Innocent Care training for health care professionals to build quick connections with their patients.
In an interview with Literary World, he talked about his writing, “Defining oneself is, perhaps, the hardest thing to do in life. In fact, that is, in a way, what life is all about. But on some level, I feel that my work provides a lot of information about who I am. If you read my novels, essays, poems, etc., you will discover someone who is passionate about the art of storytelling. Someone who believes that art should strive to save lives, liberate people, challenge stereotypes, and so forth. Reflected in my writing you will, I hope, see someone who has spent an inordinate amount of time interrogating myself, my values and behaviors, as well as those of the people around me–and who continues to learn what it means to be African American and male. You would see that I am currently fixated on the idea of “home” and on the concepts of “guilt” and “innocence” (particularly as it relates to black men)."
Pate leads his company through his vision for a world in which our children are free to achieve their unlimited potential, our people are free to live healthily and fully, and our humanity is prioritized and valued in the structures of society.
