On Wednesday, March 3rd, Long Beach City College hosted a Youtube live event in celebration of Black History Month. Keith Boykin, CNN Political Commentator, was the guest speaker and addressed issues on being an African American Journalist.
Boykin is a CNN political commentator and a former White House President Aid for the United State’s 42nd President, Bill Clinton. He is a best selling author for New York Times, and a four time LAMBDA Literary Award winner, also known as Lammy’s, this award honors the best book author who is a part of the LGBTQ community.
Jerome Hunt, student equity coordinator and assistant professor of Political Science hosted the event.
There was a moment of silence during the introduction of the event to honor and remember all of the lives who have been lost during the COVID-19 pandemic.
After the moment of silence, Hunt introduced Boykin by describing him as a source of inspiration for him and has been following his work in politics but also his work in television and media for quite some time.
Boykin is also the co-founder and first board President of the National Black Justice Coalition, and a National Civil Rights Organization dedicated to the empowerment of the African American and the LGBTQ communities.
First, Boykin talked about his experiences in life and how he navigated his time in college as a Black man.
He was born and raised in St. Louis, Missouri and went to High school in Florida. Attended college in New Hampshire, Law School in Boston. He worked in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Little Rock, Atlanta, and Washington D.C.
Currently he resides in Harlem, New York. Keith has lived in 12 cities in his lifetime, and visited 48/50 of the states.
Boykin attended Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire. During his time attending Dartmouth college he got involved in the campus newspaper and started to edit for his college paper; the Daily Student Newspaper. Eventually, he became their editor in chief.
“At that time one of the biggest issues on college campuses had been the question of divestment, whether colleges and universities should be investing their resources and their funds into businesses pertaining to South Africa,” said Boykin.
Students on his college campus at Dartmouth, erected a shanty town on the college green to demonstrate what living conditions were like for people who actually lived in South Africa who were predominantly Black.
“One day a group of white conservative students with a sledge hammer came and knocked down all of the shanties while people were sleeping in them.” said Boykin.
Boykin explained that his experience at both Harvard and Dartmouth were an influence towards his interests in politics. Mainly because of his coverage of the Shantytown protests that followed the attack at Dartmouth. It helped him understand the importance of student activism and the media.
When Boykin led the movement for diversity at Harvard Law School he never imagined one of his classmates, Barack Obama, would one day become the 44th U.S. President.
Secondly, Boykin talked about his political experiences after completing his Harvard education.
After graduating from college, it led him to opportunities to travel the world. He was able to travel for political campaigns; including the Michael Dukakis campaign.
“I had this wonderful experience traveling on a campaign plane with a candidate and basically a Democratic nominee for President and it gave me a chance to see the world and see how politics operates up close.” said Boykin.
He spoke about the younger generation being important to the changes and political movements in the past few years.
“Young people, especially, are demanding change and saying things don’t have to be the way they’ve always been.” said Boykin.
There is a systemic problem in place in the U.S.
He talked about how racism is still a problem in the LGBTQ community and homophobia is still a problem within the black community.
Boykin said, “Black people tend to be more supportive than white people on every LBGTQ issue except one and that is on gay marriage, and this is the issue black people tend to be more conservative on. And actually black people are as progressive or if not more progressive than white people are.”
Boykin has written a new book called Race Against Time: The Politics of a Darkening America which comes out in Sept., 2021. It deals with the fact that our country is changing in a way that it’s making a lot of people uncomfortable about who they are.
Boykin said, “And we saw this happen on Jan 6., 2021, we saw that people are willing to destroy democracy itself rather than to share it with people who don’t look like them, who don’t think like them, or who don’t come from the same background.”
He said, “We had four crises take place last year in 2020 in which we were struggling with, the first is the crises with the coronavirus which started a year ago at this time in this country. The second was the economic crises which shut down businesses and states for several months at a time. Third is the racial justice crises which originally started with the death of Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaad Aubrey making it a movement during the spring but really became a summer movement after the death of George Floyd. And lastly is the crises of democracy.”
Boykin was one of a dozen reporters who were targeted and arrested during one of the peaceful protests in honor of George Floyd in New York. He was documenting the protests for his own twitter feed, the same way he was documenting other protests and events.
Boykin ended with a Q&A, and to answer questions on the importance of voting, African Americans’ relationship with Democratic and Repdublican parties, and student involvement within the field of Politics.
The replay of the event can be found here: https://youtu.be/oesRrPfHYYM