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Biography

An inner city child, Robert Kimble grew up to become involved in giving back to his community and making life better for the next generation. He was the first in his family to graduate from college. It was in college where he learned to make his own opportunities. His experiences taught him the value of trust, service, and community involvement. He is the Youth Program Director for the Dubuque YMCA and one of the organizers of the Dare to Be Kings program which strives to teach and encourage young African American boys to become strong, successful men in their homes, their churches, and their community.

Transcript

Josh Person: Please state your name and spell it.

Robert JJ Kimble: Robert Kimble. Last name is K-I-M-B-L-E.

Josh Person: Where were you born and raised?

Robert JJ Kimble: I was born in Jefferson, Missouri but I was raised in Memphis, Tennessee and partly Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Josh Person: What brought you to Dubuque?

Robert JJ Kimble: My father raced greyhound dogs. He was in the greyhound dog business, and he brought me to this community just to keep me out of trouble.

Josh Person: Where did you go to school?

Robert JJ Kimble: In Milwaukee, Wisconsin I went to middle school at Walker Middle School and high school I went to South Division High School, Milwaukee and I spent about a year and a half or so at Senior High School in Dubuque.

Josh Person: How long have you lived in Iowa?

Robert JJ Kimble: On and off, not straight, but on and off for about 12 years.

Josh Person: Can you talk about your family?

Robert JJ Kimble: What in particular do you about to know about my family?

Josh Person: Do you have family in Dubuque?

Robert JJ Kimble: Yeah, I’m married. My wife, Nelly, she is actually born in Dubuque, so she is a resident of Dubuque. And when I married my wife, she had some daughters so kind of married into a family situation. I have five daughters total, some biological, some just through marriage. And that’s my family in Dubuque and I do have one little brother here.

Josh Person: What is your impression of Iowa?

Robert JJ Kimble: Great community to raise a family, a progressive community, there’s a lot of growth in terms of businesses and also just in terms of, a lot of people from different areas are migrating into the community or into the state.

Josh Person: What did you do for entertainment when you were young?

Robert JJ Kimble: I did a lot of break dancing. I did a lot of rapping, so I was really into the hip-hop scene when I was a youth. I played sports, basketball, football.

Josh Person: What professional experiences and positions have you had?

Robert JJ Kimble: I have been pretty much, most of my professional career, I’ve been a program director. I am a high school basketball coach, and I have also been involved in a just a lot of community organizing projects, kind of like Obama.

Josh Person: How has the Civil Rights movement affected you?

Robert JJ Kimble: I was born in 1972 so the Civil Rights movement didn’t have an impact on me growing up mainly because I didn’t grow up in the Civil Rights era. However, a lot of my family are from down south and they have a lot of stories so I get a lot of education from my mother, my grandmother, and my great grandmother when she was alive and they often tell me that the Civil Rights movement has impacted all of us greatly, but not much directly.

Josh Person: What organizations have you been involved in?

Robert JJ Kimble: I have been involved with the NAACP. I have been involved with the Dubuque Community Y, Youth Coalition Boards. I’ve been involved with a lot the small group community meetings, like the Community Circle of Care which focuses on mental health issues for youth as well as Shared Youth Visions who focuses on developing youth programs and building assets for youth in the Dubuque community.

Josh Person: Why did you choose to get involved in any of the organizations?

Robert JJ Kimble: Just because when I was a young man, there were a lot of people who were very instrumental in changing my life and putting me on the right path. So as I got older and as I began to realize the impact of the people that give back to the community I realized that it was my obligation and my desire to do the same.

Josh Person: Who was your connections?

Robert JJ Kimble: What do you mean by connections?

Josh Person: In the organizations.

Robert JJ Kimble: Who is or who were, who was?

Josh Person: Who is?

Robert JJ Kimble: OK, well at this point, originally my connections to any of these groups was
actually through Cammie Dean. I was not really heavily involved in the NAACP or certain organizations and Cammie Dean, she just kind of, who was the president of the NAACP at the time, she kind of challenged me to get involved with the NAACP. So she was pretty instrumental in just getting involved in organizations.

Josh Person: How did your family feel about you getting involved?

Robert JJ Kimble: Honestly, my family, most of my family members, they really don’t focus on
community issues just because of their lifestyles and the things they are doing. I’m sorry I don’t have very many family members, however, my wife and my kids, they’re pretty proud of me.

Josh Person: What leadership experiences did you have in college?

Robert JJ Kimble: I helped organize community basketball leagues for the underserved community. Throughout college I was involved in a lot of grass roots efforts to develop programming to outreach to the community, so I actually attended kind of a Christian college, and I majored in elementary education and theology, so in my school, they really didn’t have a lot of groups that were active so you really had to create your own opportunities.

Josh Person: What was some of your biggest accomplishments?

Robert JJ Kimble: I would say probably developing, helping develop, a lot of programs and leagues for the underserved community. One of the things that I helped develop, also, was a youth basketball program called the Intensity Basketball Program. Right now I have over a hundred kids involved in a club basketball program. I helped develop and enhance also, a basketball league which we serve over 1000 kids and that’s all just desiring to do things positive in the community and that keep youth off the streets.

Josh Person: What was your happiest and saddest memory?

Robert JJ Kimble: Probably my happiest memory is when I graduated from college. I was the first person in my family to graduate from college and my saddest was probably the death of my father, who died a couple of years ago on Christmas Day.

Josh Person: If you could change anything about your experience in the community, what would it be?

Robert JJ Kimble: Probably my background, how I grew up. I didn’t realize how the decisions I made as a youth would impact the challenges I had as an adult. I have overcome a lot and I have had some successes as an adult but it was ten times harder just for me to get my foot in the door in the community because I had to gain the community’s trust that I would be a productive member of society. So if I could change anything, I most definitely probably would change my childhood and the decisions I made as a youth.

Josh Person: What would you change about your class?

Robert JJ Kimble: About my class? What class?

Josh Person: High school.

Robert JJ Kimble: What would I change about my high school experiences or my high school class?

Josh Person: It just says class.

Robert JJ Kimble: If I could anything about my high school experience, probably, I had an experience here in this community in Dubuque, Iowa for a year and a half where I experienced racism at a level that I had only seen on TV and the movies when I lived here. I was threatened, often, called names, almost on a daily basis people would yell stuff out the windows, calling me names, and psychologically, that really caused me to struggle, a lot of anger built up and emotions, just because, you watch movies on the Civil Rights Movement and you see people mistreated but to actually experience it in the late, in the early nine, in the late 1980s or the early 1990s, I didn’t think that that could exist. So, if I could change anything I most definitely would change that because those negative experiences, those racial slurs, the many adults as I was a youth that approached me the way that they did really impacted my psychologically and it took me awhile to get over it.

Josh Person: What are your plans for the future?

Robert JJ Kimble: I hope to get involved in prison outreach in ministry. I would love to help develop a program to help the recidivatism rate of inmates that return back to prison. I would love for that program also to help provide training and education and job opportunities for the inmates so that it helps them become a productive member of society and not return back to the correctional facilities.

Josh Person: In 20 years what is one thing you want people to remember?

Robert JJ Kimble: I want people to remember that, I want people to kind of study my background where I came from and how hard it was, and how even an inner city kid that grew up the way that I did, I want people to know that you can overcome it, it is possible and that you can do things great on this earth even though you may grow up in a difficult situation. I would love for my story to be told to all kinds of young men throughout the country so that they can be encouraged and know that no matter how bad your situation is, you can make it.

Josh Person: What advice would you give African-Americans in this community?

Robert JJ Kimble: Swallow your pride and come together and unify. Seek others' interest before your own. And as a result, everybody’s interests will be served. If us as a community will take a servants approach, then I think that our community as a whole can become healthier. Our youth and our families can grow mentally as well as spiritually and as well as educationally if we swallow our pride and work together and help one another.

Josh Person: That’s it.