McKinley Kemp arrived in Antelope Valley on October 28, 1958. He attended all local schools, graduating from Palmdale High School in 1968. McKinley joined the US Navy right out of high school, where he did boot camp in San Diego, CA. He was sent to Radioman school and subsequently received his first assignment in Adak, Alaska, at the Naval Communication Station Adak. After his tour of duty, he was then assigned to the USS James E. Kyes DD787 out of Long Beach, serving two tours of duty off the coast of Vietnam. Despising shipboard life, he volunteered for in-country duty in Vietnam, returning to the US in 1972 at US Naval Station San Francisco, CA, which was ironically located in Stockton, California. McKinley received a medical discharge in 1974. McKinley will have been married 50 years in June of 2025 and has two adult children, four grandchildren, and 8 great-grandchildren.  

After military service, the family settled in Lancaster, where McKinley attended Antelope Valley College and worked full-time as a School Relations Officer with the EOPS program at AVC, developing the first campus-wide tutoring program, which is now the study center on campus. Upon graduating, he was chosen “Outstanding Minority Graduate Community College,” which resulted in receiving more than 1,000 scholarship offers. He chose UCLA, where he received a BA in Economics. He worked as a Financial Planner for five years, then met a group of Medical Oncologists and was hired to develop cancer treatment centers on a national level. After a major motorcycle accident, traveling became too challenging due to injuries, so he returned to school full-time and earned his MBA from Azusa Pacific University, receiving the “Outstanding MBA Graduate” award for academic achievement. After graduation, McKinley wrote the grant for the first Black Infant Health (BIH) Program for the Antelope Valley and became its program Director for 12 years. The focus of the BIH program was to reduce the infant mortality rate for African Americans. After losing the program in a bidding process, he became the Director of a “Welcome Baby Program” with Antelope Valley Partners for Health (AVPH). Additionally, McKinley has been an adjunct professor teaching Micro/Macro Economics at Antelope Valley College for the last 25 years.  

“Empower the Community” a 501.3c nonprofit corporation was created to specifically make an impact on the African American Infant mortality rates and to bring resources to disadvantaged communities in the Antelope Valley.