Speaker Lee Hawkins says America much more tolerant

(NOTE: This article originally appeared in the February 11, 2009 edition of Central Michigan Life.)

Lee Hawkins said the next step in the Civil Rights Movement is economic empowerment after the election of President Barack Obama.

Hawkins, a Wall Street Journal reporter and on-air correspondent for CNBC, discussed the Obama presidency, racial inequality and goals for young, black America in the Black History Month keynote address Tuesday in Warriner Hall’s Plachta Auditorium.

“There’s never been a better time to be black in America,” Hawkins said. “Obama’s election is a sign that America is more racially tolerant.”

Hawkins said the Obama presidency has thrust blacks into an era of heightened opportunity and responsibility.

“Blacks shouldn’t be pacified by a black man in the Oval Office,” he said.

Wall Street Journal writer to speak Tuesday for Black History Month

(NOTE: This article originally appeared in the February 9, 2009 edition of Central Michigan Life.)

Black History Month events at Central Michigan University will run throughout February, with Lee Hawkins of MSNBC and the Wall Street Journal giving the keynote address tomorrow.

Hawkins’ speech takes place at 7 p.m. Tuesday in Warriner Hall’s Plachta Auditorium. The speech is the featured event of Black History month and what Minority Student Services is looking forward to the most, said Shant’l Raines, a graduate assistant from Farmington Hills.

Hawkins earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he was the editorial page editor of the Badger Herald student newspaper. He covered General Motors at the Detroit bureau of the Wall Street Journal and has worked as a business reporter for the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel and the Wisconsin State Journal.

His forthcoming book, “Newbos: The Rise of America’s New Black Overclass,” is expected to be published by Gotham Books in June.

“What we want everyone to come out and see is Lee Hawkins,” Raines said. “We want people who will expand on black history.”