Long before Keith Boykin stood in the East Room of the White House helping orchestrate the first-ever meeting between a sitting U.S. president and LGBT leaders, he was just a kid growing up in St. Louis. It’s easy to forget that icons often start right next door.
Boykin, who lived here until high school before moving to Florida, has never lost sight of the roots that shaped him. Today, he’s a New York Times best-selling author of seven books, a Harvard Law graduate, a former special assistant in the Clinton White House, and a driving force in national conversations around race, sexuality, and politics.
His journey is a testament to what’s possible when brilliance meets purpose. After Dartmouth and Harvard, where he studied under critical race theory founder Derrick Bell and attended law school alongside a future president named Barack Obama, Boykin carved out a career that would continually break new ground. In the 1990s, he helped organize the first truly revolutionary dialogue between a sitting president and the LGBTQ community forever changing how the White House engaged queer Americans, and setting the stage for broader inclusion of voices that had long been ignored.
Boykin co-founded and served as the first board president of the National Black Justice Coalition, the nation’s leading Black LGBTQ civil rights organization. His work has consistently centered the lives of Black and Brown people, particularly those at the intersection of race and queerness. He marched with Coretta Scott King, traveled to Africa on a presidential delegation with Rev. Jesse Jackson, and went on to become a trusted political commentator on CNN, CNBC, BET, and more. Additionally he co-hosted the BET talk show My Two Cents, starred on Showtime’s American Candidate, and even appeared on Being Mary Jane and The View.
But Keith Boykin is more than just titles or appearances. He’s a connector, an intercessor, someone who consistently uses his platforms to bridge communities, challenge systems, and tell the stories that others overlook. Whether writing his syndicated columns, teaching, or producing his new series “Black Vote, Black Power,” Boykin’s voice has remained sharp, insightful, and fiercely committed to amplifying the experiences of those who live at the margins, especially Black and Brown LGBTQ people.
Today, he lives in Los Angeles, And like always he’s on the ground working in one of the toughest times in our countries history. And having traveled to different continents, lived in a different cities, and visited nearly every U.S. state there’s still something distinctly St. Louis about him: that mix of hustle, heart, and a relentless drive to make sure the places he’s from are better for those coming after him.
Pride Month and Juneteenth may have passed, but we continue to celebrate people like Keith Boykin trailblazers who move the culture forward, build bridges across race and sexuality, and make space for the intersection of Blackness and queerness to be seen, honored, and empowered.
This story is a collaborative feature between Out In STL and DELUX Magazine.
