Arif Khatib

Cultural activist Arif Khatib was born on June 7, 1934, to Claudia and Mack Smith in Leola, Arkansas. Khatib attended El Cerrito High School and then transferred in his junior year to Contra Costa College. He left the college in 1954. In the 1960s, he did a two year radiology program at Merritt College. He later attended correspondence courses at Golden Gate University before transferring to San Jose State University, where he earned his B.A. degree in business.

Khatib began his career working in the passenger services, operations department for Southern Pacific Railroad in 1953. In 1960, Khatib started representing the business and financial affairs of several African American players with the Oakland Raiders, Oakland A's, San Francisco Giants, and San Francisco Warriors. He then served as a member of the Afro-American Association in Oakland, California in 1962, worked as the special event coordinator on the campaign of then Berkeley Councilman Ronald Dellums in 1968, and taught industrial relations and labor management at the University of California, Berkeley in 1969. In 1968, Khatib was hired as the national sales coordinator for the Black and Brown Trading Stamp and then he helped to establish the Russian River Jazz Festival in Guerneville, California in 1972. Khatib founded his own record label, Skytime Entertainment, in 1986 before selling the label in 1998. In 1992, Khatib also founded the Rodney Strong Vineyard Summer Concert Series. In 2000, Khatib founded the African American Ethnic Sports Hall of Fame, later renamed as the Multi-Ethnic Sports Hall of Fame, where he served as president. He then launched the internet radio show, National & International Roundtable, which he co-hosted with Judge Fad Wilson Jr. in 2013. Khatib wrote six books including two books co-authored with Pete Elman: In the Shadow of Obscurity: Toiling in a Reluctant Society in 2020 and Remember Their Sacrifice: Stories of Unheralded Athletes of Color in 2023. Khatib also wrote the preface to Dr. Linda Taylor’s A Woman’s Ticket to Understanding Football in 2024. In the same year, Khatib served as the executive producer of the documentary film Because They Believed, which streamed on numerous platforms including Amazon Prime and Apple TV.

Khatib joined the NAACP in 1980. Since 1998, he served on the Life Long Medical Care board. In 2011, Khatib started serving as a consultant in Allen Temple Church’s drug and violence prevention program. Khatib also worked as a cultural ambassador for the Indian American Hindu Community.

Khatib received numerous recognitions for his professional achievements, including an “Ambassador for Peace Award” from the Universal Peace Federation in 1984.

Khatib resides in Oakland, California. He has four children, Lorre, Phyllis, Khalil, and Khadijah.

Arif Khatib was interviewed by The HistoryMakers on January 5, 2024.