Tim Wise

About Tim Wise

Tim Wise (born October 4, 1968 in Nashville, Tennessee) is an American anti-racist activist and writer.

Tim Wise is among the most prominent anti-racist activists in the U.S., having given lectures from 1995 to the present in 48 different states, and on over 500 college campuses. He has trained a multitude of teachers, corporate employees, non-profit organizations and law enforcement officers in methods for dismantling racism in their institutions.

Wise was born in Nashville, Tennessee on October 4, 1968 to Michael Julius Wise and LuCinda Anne (McLean) Wise. He attended public schools there, graduating from Hillsboro High School in 1986, at which school he was Student Body Vice-President and a member of one of the top high school debate teams in the United States. Wise went to college at Tulane University in New Orleans and received his B.A. there, with a major in Political Science and a minor in Latin American Studies. While a student he was a leader in the campus anti-apartheid movement, which sought to force Tulane to divest from companies still doing business with the white supremacist government of South Africa. He first came to national attention as an anti-apartheid leader in 1988, when South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu announced he would turn down an offer of an honorary degree from Tulane, after Wise's group informed him of the school's ongoing investments there.