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Dr. Kendi, 39, is perhaps the most widely known of the 25 people in this year’s class of MacArthur Fellows. His 2019 book, “How to Be an Antiracist,” has sold 2 million copies and established him as one of the country’s leading commentators on race since the George Floyd protests last year.

But the MacArthur Fellowship is not simply love mail. It comes with a no-strings-attached grant of $625,000, to be awarded over five years. And it is known colloquially as the “genius” award, to the sometime annoyance of the foundation.

Cecilia Conrad, managing director of the program, said the goal of the awards is to recognize “exceptional creativity,” as well as future potential, across the arts, sciences, humanities, advocacy and other fields.

“We want to have a share in people who are at a pivotal moment, when the fellowship could accelerate what their future could look like,” she said.

Most of the 2021 fellows, while esteemed in their fields, have yet to become household names.

There are artists and writers like the poet and lawyer Reginald Dwayne Betts, the critic, essayist and poet Hanif Abdurraqib; the novelist and radio producer Daniel Alarcón; and the writer and curator Nicole R. Fleetwood, whose book “Marking Time: Art in the Age of Mass Incarceration” won the 2021 National Book Critics Circle Award for criticism.