John Kenneth "Ken" Blackwell (born February 28, 1948) is an American politician and activist who served as the mayor of Cincinnati, Ohio from 1979 to 1980, the Ohio State Treasurer from 1994 to 1999, and Ohio Secretary of State from 1999 to 2007. He was the Republican candidate for governor of Ohio in 2006 and got 37% of the vote against the eventual victor, Ted Strickland. He was the first African American to be a major-party candidate for governor in Ohio.
Blackwell graduated from Xavier University in Cincinnati, Ohio with a B.S. in psychology in 1970 and in 1971 earned his M.S. in Education, also from Xavier, where he went on to teach for fifteen years before being elected mayor of Cincinnati in 1979.
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Former ambassador to the U.N. Human Rights Commission.