Political activist and television personality Jeffrey Johnson will be the keynote speaker for the University of Mary Washington’s celebration of Black History Month. The lecture, a Cultural Awareness Series event, will take place on Wednesday, February 6 in Woodard Campus Center, Great Hall at 7 p.m. The event is open to the public without charge.
Jeffrey Johnson has brought his political and social activism to the Black Entertainment Television Network (BET) as the host and producer of “The Cousin Jeff Chronicles,” a series of mini-documentaries that tells the stories of Black and Latino communities. An African Methodist Episcopal minister, public speaker and the political voice of BET, Johnson appears weekly on “Rap City,” engaging and enlightening a nation of young viewers on important political and social issues affecting their communities.
Formerly the vice president of the Hip-Hop Summit Action Network, Johnson was responsible for supervising the network’s grassroots outreach during the 2004 presidential election. Johnson also was national director of the NAACP Youth and College Division. He serves as the youth pastor of the Empowerment Temple AME church in Baltimore, a ministry that uses hip-hop to take the message of the Bible to a new generation.
“The youth of today are the leaders of tomorrow,” Johnson said. “If we fail to sow the seeds of education and real leadership into our young people today, we will be forced to reap the weeds of our ignorance versus the flowers of our love tomorrow.
Johnson has appeared on CNN, MTV and C-Span, as well as “BET Tonight,” and has been featured in The Washington Post and The New York Times. He has lectured at colleges and universities all over the country, and he conducts countless leadership training sessions in his local communities.
For more information, call the James Farmer Multicultural Center at (540) 654-1044.