Tony Keith Jr., PhD is an award-winning Black American gay poet, spoken word artist, and Hip-Hop educational leader from Washington, D.C. Or, you can just call him an “Ed Emcee”. He is the author of How the Boogeyman Became a Poet (2024) and Knucklehead (2025), both published by HarperCollins.
A multi-year fellow of the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, Tony has featured performances at John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Washington National Cathedral, Historic Lincoln Theatre, Bus Boys & Poets, and in schools and communities around the world including South Africa, Tanzania, Trinidad and Tobago, and many more.
His poem “Black Man On Fire” won first prize in the Tom Howard/Margaret Reid Poetry Contest and his performance of “Code Switched” is featured in the award-winning documentary series Talking Black in America (2017) and published in the book about Centering Possibility in Black Education (Teachers College Press, 2021).
He is a former cultural center director at Penn State University and the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, and served as an adjunct professor and academic advisor at the University of the District of Columbia and the University of Maryland College Park. Tony is co-author of the award-winning book Open Mic Night: Campus Programs that Champion College Student Voice and Engagement (Routledge, 2017), and his academic work appears in the International Journal of Critical Media Literacy, Equity & Excellence in Education, The Journal of Black Masculinity, The Journal of Negro Education, and several others.
He holds a BA in Communication Studies from the University of Maryland College Park, an M.Ed. in College Student Affairs from Penn State University, and a PhD in Education Leadership from George Mason University. His dissertation received outstanding recognition and awards from the American Education Research Association and Humanities DC.
Currently, Tony serves as founder and CEO of Ed Emcee Academy, is on the board of Directors at Shout Mouse Press, and teaches English Language Arts for adult learners at Academy of Hope in his DC homestown, where he resides with his husband, Harry Christian III.
