John Robert Edward Kinard (November 22, 1936 – August 5, 1989) was an American social activist, pastor, and museum director.

The Washington Post said Kinard was "a passionate believer in the idea that the well-being of black people depends on having a record of their past".

[1][3] He attended Howard University in Washington, D.C., for a year and a half, but transferred to Livingstone College in Salisbury, North Carolina.

He subsequently enrolled at Hood Theological Seminary (then part of Livingstone College, but now a separate institution), earning a Bachelor of Divinity degree in 1963.

[3][4][5] In 1962, while attending Hood Theological Seminary, he joined Operation Crossroads Africa (a progenitor of the Peace Corps) and spent a summer building student housing and dining facilities in Tanzania.

He was later promoted to coordinator of all Operation Crossroads projects in eastern Africa (a region ranging from Cairo in the north to Zimbabwe in the south).

[6] In 1966, Kinard was appointed assistant pastor at John Wesley African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church in Washington, D.C.[7] After leaving Operations Crossroads Africa, Kinard joined the Office of Economic Opportunity,[1] but quickly moved to the United States Department of State where he worked as an interpreter and escort for visiting African government officials.

[1] The exhibit "Lorton Reformatory: Beyond Time" highlighted the fact that many young African American men from the Southeast Washington were incarcerated at the prison, and documented their life there.

[10] The museum later curated major exhibits on the problems of crime, the illegal drug trade, poor housing conditions, and lack of quality education in African American communities.

[13] When a National Museum of African American History and Culture was being pushed in Congress during his term as president of the AAMA, Kinard strongly opposed the plan.

Kinard and the AAMA demanded that Congress establish a $50 million fund to create a national foundation to support local black history museums as a means of mitigating these problems.

"My vision is that the Smithsonian Institution ought to take the lead in developing a national African American museum on the Mall.

"[1] Livingstone College established the John R. Kinard Scholarship for Leadership and Academic Excellence in his honor.