DERRICK BARNES is a National Book Award Finalist for his 2022 graphic novel Victory. Stand!-Raising My Fist For Justice. He is also the author of the critically acclaimed, multi-award-winning picture book Crown: An Ode to the Fresh Cut which received a Newbery Honor, a Coretta Scott King Author Honor, the Ezra Jack Keats New Writer Award, and the Kirkus Prize for Young Readers.

In 2020, he became the only author to have won the Kirkus Prize twice for his twelfth release, the New York Times bestseller I Am Every Good Thing. The title also won a Charlotte Huck Award (NCTE), and a Boston Globe-Horn Book Award Honor.

Derrick is also the creator of the New York Times Bestselling companion picture books, The King of Kindergarten (2019) and The Queen of Kindergarten (2022).

He is a graduate of Jackson State University (BA-Marketing ’99) and was the first African-American male creative copywriter hired by greeting cards giant Hallmark Cards. Derrick is a native of Kansas City, MO, but currently lives in Charlotte, North Carolina, with his enchanting wife, Dr. Tinka Barnes, and their four sons, the Mighty Barnes Brothers.

VICTORY – STAND! RAISING MY FIST FOR JUSTICE

In the multi award winning, National Book Award Finalist-graphic novel Victory. Stand!, Derrick Barnes tells the life story of Olympic Gold medalist Tommie Smith. On October 16, 1968, during the medal ceremony at the Mexico City Summer games, he stood on the podium with teammate John Carlos in black socks and raised their black-gloved fists to protest racial injustice inflicted upon African Americans.