Calling for social change, CNBC contributor Keith Boykin reminded an audience Wednesday night of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s quote that "injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."
The keynote speaker at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Evening Celebration in Eisenhower Auditorium, Boykin spoke to a crowd of about 150 people on standing up against what is wrong and striving to make things right despite fears of being silenced.
"We are afraid to lift our voices to people of power," Boykin said. "But people will listen if we speak loudly enough."
Boykin is the editor of the online news Web site The Daily Voice, but is better known as a BET TV host and political activist. He was asked to be the replacement keynote speaker after CNN correspondent Soledad O'Brien was deployed to Haiti to cover the aftermath of the recent earthquake.
Boykin -- who attended Harvard Law School with President Barack Obama -- told the audience of their efforts to make the school hire more diverse professors through sit-ins and protests. Boykin encouraged college students to "shake things up" like he, Obama and King did to change their communities.
"Dr. King was a radical. He spoke truth to power. He was a rebel rouser," Boykin said. "Today, there are too many people that should be speaking up, who are not."
This theme stuck out to Mercedes Davis (senior-supply chain and information systems), who attended MLK events all week.
"I like what he said about speaking truth to power," Davis said. "You handle it by being honest, being up front and being a leader."
One of Boykin's strongest points was that King did not simply want equality for African Americans, but for all people, whether they were similar to him or not.
"We don't learn from one another when everyone talks the same, when everyone looks the same, when everyone thinks the same as one another," Boykin said. "We learn through controversy."
The speech was well received by the audience members, who often broke into applause and asked Boykin during a question and answer section how they themselves could help make social changes.
"He called for us to be engaged with our community and to do the right thing," Georjanne Williams, an academic advisor in the College of Engineering said. "It was an appropriate representation of Dr. King's message."
The evening also featured music by the State College Friends School and Essence of Joy. Silent Praise, a nonprofit mime ministry also performed, using different movements to represent the religious teachings of King.
Before leaving, Boykin summed up his message to the college students who felt they were too small to make real change.
"Don't disempower yourselves. There's power in being a young person," he said.
