About Ruth King

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Ruth King is the Founder of Mindful of Race Institute, LLC, and is a celebrated author, educator, and meditation teacher.

Formally an organizational development consultant to Intel and Levi Strauss corporations, King currently teaches the Mindful of Race Training Program to leaders, teams, and organizations, weaving mindfulness-based principles with an exploration of our racial conditioning, its impact, and our potential.

King teaches mindfulness meditation retreats worldwide and develops meditation practitioners at Spirit Rock Meditation Center, Insight Meditation Society, and the Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Certification Program. She has a Masters Degree in Clinical Psychology from John F. Kennedy University, CA, and is the author of several publications including her most recent, Mindful of Race: Transforming Racism From The Inside Out.

King's work is also featured in the 2021 publications of Chicken Soup for the Soul's I'm Speaking Now: Black women share their truth, and Nautilus Book Award Gold Recipient Black & Buddhist: What Buddhism can teach us about race, resilience, transformation, and freedom.

King - Elder, Heart Activist, African American with Choctaw roots, and native Californian, currently reside on the unceded territory of the Catawba indigenous nations in Charlotte, NC, with wife, Dr. Barbara Riley.

World travel has influenced King's intuitive and ceremonial style as well as cultural diversity, indigenous wisdom, and the human experience. Both provocative and compassionate, King speaks to the heart of her audiences with audacity, authenticity and joy.

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From Our Clients

Insight Meditation Teacher and Mentor

Brave Space was brilliant for supporting racial affinity groups to understand what it is we carry. The biggest aspect was having these difficult and challenging conversations in relationship with each other. I found this exploration powerful and important.

Susan Bauer-Wu, President, Mind & Life Institute

The Mindful of Race year-long training for our organization opened our eyes. It put a fire under us and allowed us to get real, to move the needle. It's critical to engage people who are knowledgeable and can guide us on this journey, The work is deep and the ripples continue.

JoAnna Hardy, Author & Founder of Meditation Coalition

I served as a Guided Teacher for a community struggling with issues around race, misogyny and hierarchy. Through doing Ruth's training, we had to open up to tough conversations and realities and dig in. Ruth King's work has been life changing to me and the communities I serve.

Tara Brach, author, Radical Compassion

Ruth's work offers us healing medicine for the suffering of racism. She not only helps us understand the complexity of our great racial divide, but she also offers core practices, reflections, and actions that give us hope for transformation.

Seth Van Der Swaagh, Industry Director, Advertising Sales, Google

The training was very well received, particularly Ruth's insight into dominant and subordinate group dynamics. In addition, Ruth's book is one of the best I've read on the work needed to transform racism, and I find myself underlining passages and reading things back to my wife regularly.

Ron Rawald, Sr. MD & Head of International Real Estate, Cerberus Capital Management

One of the hard truths of reading Ruth’s book was learning that I could not see my own whiteness. I never felt I had advantages. But I did! I now understand white privilege within me and our industry. This is why I invited Ruth to support us in having this conversation.

Tanisha Pleasant, MBA, Director of Equity Strategy, Strive Together

In our year together, Ruth drew the connections between mindfulness and race equity, and showed us how to remain grounded, strategic, and systemic while doing the important work of race.