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Randall Lee Kryn (b. 1949), commonly known as Randy Kryn, is an American journalist, writer, and historian best known for his work with the Civil Rights Movement, and within that, as chief biographer of strategist James Bevel, one of the movement's top two leaders (the other being Martin Luther King Jr.). Throughout his life in the East North Central states of the Midwestern U.S., Kryn has also been involved with newspaper editing, community organizing, politics, activism, parapsychology, and Wikipedia editing.

Early life and education
Kryn was born on October 12, 1949 in Chicago, Illinois. He attended Oak Park and River Forest High School as a member of the class of 1967. Thereafter, he enrolled as a student at Morton College; while there, he signed a petition to implement a course for Polish-American history at the school. Kryn also wrote and edited for the school newspaper Morton College Collegian, during which he received a heartfelt open letter from Coretta Scott King (published in the paper in 1970) whereby she directly praised his editorial work. Kryn graduated from the college in 1970.

Parapsychology and spirituality
Since 1977, Kryn has been the president and research director of the Illinois Society for Psychic Research. He corresponded with Harold Sherman in a manuscript titled Man As Soul – Entity. In July 1994, members of Heaven's Gate attempted to proselytize Kryn in Madison, Wisconsin to no avail.

Community organizing, politics, and activism
Kryn is the founder, president, and director of the Oak Park Center for Creativity. Also in the 1980s, he started getting heavily involved in politics in the Chicago area. Kryn was the chairman of the 7th Congressional Republican Council and in 1986, he received greetings from the Soviet consulate in New York City. In 1989, he ran for a position as Oak Park trustee; during the campaign, he advocated for the legalization of marijuana, and said the following about the substance: Kryn would go on to lose that election.

In the 1992 Democratic National Platform Committee, Kryn served as a representative from Wisconsin for Jerry Brown. In that capacity, Kryn continued his marijuana legalization advocacy by submitting an amendment; it was defeated, although chairman Nancy Pelosi (who later became Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives) praised Kryn for "waking up" the meeting.

On August 28, 1996, Kryn (a Madison, Wisconsin resident at the time) was arrested for leading David Dellinger, Bradford Lyttle, and eight others in a protest at the 1996 Democratic National Convention in Chicago that would nominate Bill Clinton for re-election to a second term as U.S. President.

Historiography


As chief biographer, Kryn has undertaken extensive work in chronicling strategist James Bevel's pivotal role in leading key events and aspects of the Civil Rights Movement such as the Chicago Freedom Movement, Selma to Montgomery marches, Nashville Student Movement, Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), and the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Kryn set into motion his career as a historian and biographer by conducting his first interviews with Bevel in 1983. In October 2005, Kryn published his thesis titled Randy Kryn: Movement Revision Research Summary Regarding James Bevel, which cemented Bevel's status and legacy as a top-level Civil Rights Movement leader along with King; in the aftermath, Kryn received publication responses from James Ralph and Kale Williams. Robert St. John has also affirmed Kryn's position in a letter, saying: Kryn has collaborated with David Garrow, sometimes serving as an assistant and sounding board in that capacity. BlackPast.org uses Kryn's work as the main reference for its James Bevel biography page.

Another role that Kryn has engaged in as a historian, is that of preserving and contributing to Ray Bradbury's hometown records in Waukegan, Illinois; Kryn did this in a multi-step process by:

On October 28, 2000, Kryn interviewed Prathia Hall, a woman who was a leader in the Civil Rights Movement; this interview would be utilized in a biography written about her by Courtney Pace, titled Freedom Faith: The Womanist Vision of Prathia Hall. Kryn also contributed a series of unpublished manuscripts from his 1998–2004 interviews with Bevel to Thomas E. Ricks' 2022 book titled Waging a Good War: A Military History of the Civil Rights Movement, 1954-1968.
 * 1) Going to the City Hall
 * 2) Obtaining copies of the house deed and birth certificates of Bradbury's parents
 * 3) Talking to the mayor
 * 4) Organizing the Ray Bradbury Society

Personal life and other endeavors
Since October 2008, Kryn has resided in Columbus, Ohio. In early 2022, he made international headlines as a Wikipedia editor with his comment in a debate regarding whether non-fungible tokens (NFTs) constitute art, by stating: