Distinguished Lecture Series Welcomes Keith Boykin to Campus October 9

Keith Boykin

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (TSU News Service) – Fighting Words will be the topic of discussion, Wednesday, Oct. 9 when Tennessee State University welcomes Keith Boykin to campus.

The event, part of the Distinguished Lecture Series sponsored by the Division of Student Affairs, will take place in Kean Hall beginning at 1 p.m. The lecture is free and open to the public.

Boykin is a CNBC contributor, MSNBC commentator, BET columnist, and New York Times best-selling author. Each of Boykin’s four books has been nominated for a Lambda Literary Award, including his most recent book, For Colored Boys Who Have Considered Suicide When The Rainbow Is Still Not Enough, which also won the American Library Association Stonewall Award for Nonfiction in 2013.

Educated at Dartmouth and Harvard, Boykin attended law school with President Barack Obama, and served in the White House as a special assistant to President Bill Clinton, where he was once the highest-ranking openly gay person in the Clinton White House. He also helped organize and participated in the nation’s first ever meeting between a sitting president and leaders of the LGBT community.

Boykin has been actively involved in progressive causes since he worked on his first congressional campaign while still a student in high school. He is a veteran of six political campaigns, including two presidential campaigns, and was named one of the top instructors when he taught political science at American University in Washington, D.C.

He has traveled extensively across four continents, and in 1997, was appointed by President Clinton to the U.S. presidential trade delegation to Zimbabwe, along with Coretta Scott King and the Reverend Jesse Jackson.

After starring on the 2004 Showtime television series American Candidate, Boykin has since appeared on numerous national media programs, including Anderson Cooper 360, The O’Reilly Factor, The Tyra Banks Show, The Montel Williams Show, Judge Hatchett and The Tom Joyner Morning Show.

A founder and first board president of the National Black Justice Coalition, Boykin has spoken to audiences, large and small, across the world. He delivered a landmark speech to more than 200,000 people at the Millennium March on Washington, and gave a stirring speech about the AIDS epidemic in front of 40,000 people in Chicago’s Soldier Field in July 2006.

Born and raised in St. Louis, Boykin lives in New York City and Miami.

Former Lecture Series guests have included actress Tasha Smith, actor and author Hill Harper, actress Robin Givens, and four-time Olympic athlete Jackie Joyner-Kersee.

For more information on the Distinguished Lecture Series, contact the Office of Student Affairs at 615.963.5621 or the Office of Media Relations at 615.963.5331.

Department of Media Relations

Tennessee State University
3500 John A. Merritt Boulevard