Staff Profile

The Reverend Professor Keith Magee Th.D., FRHistS, FRSA is trained as an economist and theologian with over 30 years of professional experience as a senior executive in higher education, museums and non-profits with a focus on culture and justice, philanthropy, public policy, and public theology. 

Having trained in theology at Grace Bible College and Harvard Divinity School, his work reflects on the Ten Commandments as ‘public policies’, thereby exploring how they inform society through belief, culture, economics, and social justice. He serves as Lead Pastor at The Berachah Church, Boston, Massachusetts. He is also a Senior Fellow and Visiting Professor of Practice in Cultural Justice at the UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose, and a Senior Fellow in Culture and Justice at the UCL Centre on U.S. Politics. Equally essential, he is Chair of The Guardian Foundation.

One of his greatest accomplishments was serving for five years as the founding director of the National Public Housing Museum in Chicago, Illinois. He successfully led and initiated a $13 million capital campaign for the museum, which is committed to being a living cultural experience on social justice and human rights, illuminating the power of place. He took the appointment after serving as a senior director at the Museum of African American History-Boston and Nantucket, a collection of historic properties. There he secured over $5 million dollars for restoration of the African Meeting House.

Professor Magee has served on the Joe Biden 2020 President Campaign’s African American Kitchen Cabinet. He previously served as Senior Religious Affairs Advisor with the Obama for America 2008 & 2012 campaign, subsequently working alongside the Obama Administration’s Faith Based Initiative. Additionally, he serves on the Board of the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, having been the Co-Chair of the Endowment Committee. Previously, he served as Co-Chair of the Massachusetts Council of Chaplains in State Institutions for Governor Deval Patrick. 

Additionally, he is passionate about providing humanitarian aid to children and families throughout the world. He has led the effort to open the first public library in Kampala, Uganda, that will provide children access to over 20,000 books. He serves on several boards: Trustee, Facing History and Ourselves; Co-Chair, State of Black Britain Symposium, and Patron, Co-ED Foundation-UK. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and was inducted into the Morehouse College Martin Luther King Jr. Collegiums of Scholars. He is a life member of Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, Inc.

As a dyslexic, one of his most significant accomplishments is being a co-creator of the Multicultural Initiative at Yale University Center for Dyslexia and Creativity. He has secured over $15 million to develop programmes and initiatives that advocate for and support dyslexia globally. One of the efforts led to the co-founding of the St. Joseph’s University Urban Teachers Masters of Education Residency Training Program. 

Reverend Magee’s body of work has awarded him with distinctions and support of the MacArthur, Ford and Seedlings foundations. He is an internationally sought-after speaker and frequently featured as a columnist and op-ed opinion contributor on issues of social justice, politics, race, and religion both in the United Kingdom and United States. Professor Magee is the author of the forthcoming Race: The Beginning and The End (2024), Prophetic Justice: On Race, Religion and Politics (2021) of which he won the 2022 Writer Digest Award, Paper Tigers: Adverse Children Experience Studies, Faith Leaders Guide (2016) and A Prayer for Our Children (2014). He was commissioned to write the foreword for Towards the Compassionate School: From Golden Rule to Golden Thread (2015).