In the classroom, he has worked as a Fresh Prep teaching artist, which uses the engaging power of hip hop music and culturally responsive pedagogy to help previously-failing students master the content on the New York State Regents exams. With a passion for language and ELL learning environments, he also works as a mandarin teacher and gives workshops to Chinese teachers on using hip hop pedagogy in classroom. His work with Fresh Prep has been featured in the New York Times and on the CBS Early Show.
As an activist and organizer with the Revolution Club and Stop Mass Incarceration Network, Mims has worked tirelessly to end the NYPD’s stop-and-frisk policy. He was arrested in October 2011 for engaging in nonviolent civil disobedience by blocking the entrance to an NYPD precinct building, and again arrested in November in Queens for nonviolently blocking the entrance to another police precinct office. Mims and his co-defendents, who include Cornel West and Carl Dix have carried the charges to trial, in what have been among the largest political trials in recent history.
“The focus of my art has always been youth culture and the urban environment, while my method has developed from participant observation to encompass social activism; from reporting about societal shifts in youth culture to creating shifts in youth culture; from following to leading”.