Mike Kinney and KK Warburton’s love story was seemingly torn from a rom-com script.
Warburton was living in North Carolina when she met Richmond’s Mike “Ali” Kinney on Facebook, sometime in 2013 or 2014. The pair exchanged messages for a couple of weeks and then Warburton decided to buy a plane ticket to California.
“It was a short stint of online dating — just a few weeks,” Warburton told Richmondside. “Then I decided to come here. I got out here and he made it really easy. I really enjoyed him. He was a barrel of laughs and just so great.
“So I went back and packed my things and came back.”
The two stayed together, living in Kinney’s 32nd Street home for the rest of his life, 14 years. The local activist, community journalist and 2012 city council candidate died of cancer on Aug. 17. He was 73.
If you go
What: Mike Kinney celebration of life
When: Tue., Oct. 20, 11 a.m.-1 p.m.
Where: Richmond Police Activities League, 2200 Macdonald Ave.
More info: A Zeffy fund has been set up for Kinney’s family.
Kinney, who was part Native American, was a staunch advocate for his community and loved writing about its struggles and its triumphs.
He helped organize Richmond’s annual Native American Walk for Sobriety (also known as the Indigenous People’s Walk for Sobriety), another group of which he counted himself a member.
He was a regular presence at Richmond City Council meetings and community events and was known for telling stories about his hometown Richmond, the only city in which Warburton said he ever lived.
Kinney inherited the couple’s home from his mother, who was a single parent and a teacher. Kinney lived in the North and East neighborhood his whole life.
“He was three-quarters Cherokee,” Warburton said. “When he learned about his heritage, the more he learned, the better he liked it and got more involved.”
This included getting into anthropology and learning as much as he could about local Native American history while becoming active with local groups.
“Anything he did, he could take a molehill and make a mountain out of it,” Warburton said.
Kinney served in the Army in the ’70s, just after the Vietnam War. He held various jobs locally, including at a radio station and a home renovation company, and later was a freelance writer for various publications, including the Chevron-backed Richmond Standard.
“I have known Mike for probably 40 years,” said former Richmond mayor Tom Butt. “Mike was smart as a whip and managed to remake himself over and over.”
“”
“He lived so many lives and did so many things…There wasn’t an area of life that Mike didn’t explore.“
— Karen Buchanan, Richmond historian
Butt said when they first met, Kinney was involved in broadcasting.
“He had an alcoholism problem but admirably managed to pull himself out of it and became a sobriety advocate,” Butt told Richmondside. For many years, I saw him as an activist, showing up regularly at city council meetings, channeling his Native American heritage as Mike ‘Raccoon Eyes’ Kinney. He wrote many historical pieces about Native American history in the Bay Area.
“It seems like everywhere I went; Mike was there.”
Mike Kinney: A flash of energy across a room
Robert Rogers, the chief of staff for John Gioia, Richmond’s representative on the Contra Costa County Board of Supervisors, said he first met Kinney when he spoke at the Native American Health Center in Richmond.
Rogers, remembering that moment in a Facebook post, recalled how he was wearing a dark beret with a plume of feathers and had his dark hair in a ponytail, his energy flashing across the room.
“This was someone who really grew and changed during his life,” Rogers told Richmondside about his good friend. “He never talked about defeat. His energy, passion and eloquence — he was like a meteor.
“He definitely had that spirit. He spoke truth to power.”
Rogers said Kinney’s passion went beyond Native American issues.
“Free speech was very big for him,” Rogers said. “Freedom, racial justice, non-imperialism. He didn’t like any restrictions on speech. He was always very suspicious of those in power.”
At the same time, he loved to tell stories about some of those same powerful people.
“Mike would tell stories,” Rogers said. “If you brought up the name of an old Richmond figure, he was really good at bringing them back to life with anecdotes that were so energetic.”
Karen Buchanan, president of the Richmond Museum Association, remembers when she was new to Richmond about a decade ago and trying to get involved in the community.
And at every event she went to, there was Kinney.
“He was omnipresent,” Buchanan said. “That’s how we got to know each other. I started popping up at every civic function, every community gathering, every coffee with a cop, every street festival, political campaign rallies. We became friends.”
Buchanan said she socialized with Kinney and Warburton.
“I’d hear their stories and share my stories. We laughed about the fact that he identifies as Native American, and I am so incredibly white.”
“Mike was a carrier of the stories of Native people,” Buchanan said. “He wrote some fascinating articles and helped society understand the culture, the history, and the struggles of Native people.
“He was one of the first people in Richmond that I know of, who brought those issues to the forefront and carried the spirit of his ancestors with him,” Buchanan said. “Mike would pray with me or call me just to offer a prayer. He was a deeply spiritual person. One day, he proudly called me and told me that he would be giving a sermon. I was not surprised, because that was Mike.
“He lived so many lives and did so many things: radio announcer, writer, activist. There wasn’t an area of life that Mike didn’t explore.”
Kinney is survived by a 39-year-old son, Max Kinney.
Rogers said Kinney’s cancer was in remission but returned the past year or so. While it was serious, Rogers said, Kinney didn’t speak the name of his illness aloud.
Warburton said just two weeks after she moved to Richmond for good, Kinney surprised her with a Native American wedding ceremony in their backyard.
“He told me he wanted to show me the pepper tree,” Warburton said. “It was a good old-fashioned Native American wedding.”
She said while they were only together 14 years, they were great years.
“It was a good run,” she said. “But it wasn’t long enough.”
