REDMOND BARNES

Historian | Community Activist

Redmond Barnes, a longtime resident of Prince George’s County, Maryland, has dedicated his life to seeking social justice and helping the community in countless ways. He is an intellectual, historian and great community leader.

For 30 years, Redmond has served as a deacon for St. Paul Church of the Friendly in Fort Washington and  received the church’s Social Action Award and many other awards for his contributions.  As chair of the church's social justice ministry, he is a founding member of The People's Coalition for Police Accountability, a group that protested police violence and advocated for police reform at the local and state level.  

Improving the quality of education and recreation is also Redmond’s hallmark. He has served as an appointed member on the Children’s Commission and on the county Parks and Recreation Advisory Board. Other activities include serving on the selection committees for two school superintendents and serving on the Board of Education’s Committee of 100. 

Redmond’s early years were in Wilson, North Carolina. He was 6 years old when 14-year-old Emmett Til was brutally murdered in Mississippi because he was Black. Redmond’s mother feared a similar fate for her sons and saved up money to move to Washington, DC. 

While the nation’s capital offered opportunities beyond fieldwork or factory jobs, during the early 1960s, Redmond realized it was only marginally better than the South in terms of challenges facing people of color. Becoming involved in any activity that improved the lives of Black and poor people then became a lifelong calling. 

One of the first organizations Redmond joined was the United Planning Organization (UPO), created in 1962 to address urban poverty and offers family support, job training, financial aid, and other social services. He met community organizers whose dedication and commitment continue to serve as a model for him today.

After serving in the Vietnam War, Redmond organized an effort to build a recreation center for the children of the underserved community in Southeast DC.  He also enrolled in Federal City College (now the University of the District of Columbia), where he met professors who inspired him to read broadly in the areas of history, politics and economics.  

In the early 1970s, Redmond and his family moved to Prince George's County, and struggled to make sure that their children (and their peers) received a quality education. Redmond, a natural organizer, set out to fix the situation by organizing a PTA, serving on an advisory council to oversee the desegregation effort in the county, and developing enrichment activities such as scouting, after-school childcare, workshops for parents, and one of the first computer labs in any school.  

Additionally, Redmond and others monitored the activities of developers in their community to ensure they provided promised amenities, lobbied the state for safer state roads and the Washington Metropolitan Area Transportation Authority for better transportation services to the community.

Redmond worked for many as the lead library technician at the National Institutes of Health (National Cancer Institute) and volunteers as a docent at the Frederick Douglass National Historic Site (Cedar Hill) in Anacostia.  “It is a great honor and no minor joy,” he says, “in being able to spend time talking about this great American ex- slave, writer, abolitionist, and still relevant model in the struggle for human rights.”

Redmond was married for over 40 years to the late Reverend Rosenna “Bunny” Barnes Barnes and they have three (3) adult children and several grandchildren.