April Yvonne Garrett is a public and applied historian dedicated to encouraging civic participation. For over 25 years, she has been a sought-after public intellectual skilled at distilling complex social issues for everyday people. April is adept at creating engaging, thought-provoking spaces for people to contemplate the impact of the issues of the day. Her work provides them with useful tools for solving problems for human good. 

As president of Amplify America, she highlights social issues, the people affected by them, and the people dedicated to solving our nation’s most persistent problems. April uses their experiences and public and applied history to stir a strong call to action and an urgent commitment to real-world engagement. 

Previously, April served as founder and president of Civic Frame, a national nonprofit organization that hosted public programs using documentary film and intellectual work to encourage critical thinking, media literacy, and civic engagement. On a local level, she spearheaded Civic Frame Presents Amplify Baltimore, a series of quarterly conversations with a diverse array of people that highlighted how specific social issues affected the city. Amplify Baltimore evolved into a 30-minute, weekly television series that highlighted the people, organizations, and businesses working to make Baltimore better. April served as its producer, writer, and host. The national and local models of civic engagement promoted by Civic Frame and Amplify Baltimore inspired her vision to create Amplify America.

After the television show, April hosted the popular podcast, The AYG List, that featured intimate conversations with fascinating people and covered current events. Guests included NAACP Legal Defense Fund president Sherrilyn Ifill, MIT historian Craig Steven Wilder, Harvard art historian Sarah Elizabeth Lewis, Slate executive editor Josh Levin, and contemporary artist Tim Okamura.

Before using her talents to empower others by advancing civic participation, April excelled in the education and social justice arenas, often as the only Black woman making major decisions that shaped intellectual and campus life at Columbia, Emory, and Harvard Universities, as well as the civil rights agenda of the NAACP. She served as Resident Program Assistant of the Intercultural Resource Center at Columbia University and Director of New Student Orientation and Assistant Director of Student Activities at Emory University. While a Harvard University Presidential Administrative Fellow, she was Fellows Officer of the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research, a Freshman Proctor for the Freshmen Dean's Office, Visiting Scholars Coordinator for the inaugural Institute on the Arts and Civic Dialogue of the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute and the American Repertory Theatre, and a Teaching Fellow in the Department of African and African American Studies. After her time at Harvard, she was appointed the first Director of Administration and Strategic Planning of the national NAACP.

April provided administrative, editorial, and research assistance on such notable publications as the Encarta Africana, The Harvard Guide to African American History, and Transition Magazine. She was the special guest editor of the first Afro Chronicles of the Afro-American Newspapers Commemorative Edition of the NAACP 91st Annual Convention, which earned her the National Newspapers Publishers Association's Leon H. Washington Award for Best Special Edition, and is a contributing essayist in the anthology Naked: Black Women Bare All About Their Skin, Hair, Hips, Lips & Other Parts edited by Ayana Byrd and Akiba Solomon. April served as guest editor of DiverCity: The Changing Face of Baltimore, a 12-part, year-long series on race and ethnicity featured in Baltimore Magazine. Editorials she penned on social justice issues have appeared in the Afro-American Newspapers and the Pittsburgh Courier and the Baltimore Sun, Baltimore City Paper, Baltimore Examiner, Chicago Tribune, Afro-American Newspapers, and regional NPR, ABC, NBC, and CBS affiliates have featured her work.

She served as the first female vice-president of the Baltimore City College Alumni Association, founder and chair of the Kenyon College Alumni of Color Collective, member of the Kenyon College Alumni Council and Kenyon Fund Executive Committee, president of the Harvard Divinity School Alumni/ae of African Descent and member of the Harvard Divinity School Leadership Council. April also served on the boards of the Justice Project of Philander Smith College and the National Black Pre-Law Admissions and Preparation Conference and Law Fair. Her altruistic commitments include increasing Black, first-generation, low-income, and women's admission, matriculation, and success rates at community colleges, colleges and universities, and graduate and professional schools, and domestic violence survivor safety, support, and sustenance. 

As a first-generation, low-income, woman of color, April earned degrees in Islamic studies from Kenyon College, higher and adult education from Teachers College Columbia University, and African American Religious History from Harvard Divinity School. The Daily Record named her one of Maryland’s Top 100 Women and Leading Women and she was inducted in the inaugural Who’s Who in Black Baltimore. She is the recipient of the Community Service Award from Lambda Kappa Mu Sorority, Inc., the Distinguished Alumni Service Award from Kenyon College, and the Exemplary Service Award from Harvard Divinity School.