Intersections Symposium 2013 Keynote speakers

Keith Boykin
New York Times Best-Selling Author and TV's Leading Commentator on Politics, Race, and Sexual Orientation

A founder and first board president of the National Black Justice Coalition, Boykin delivered a landmark speech to 200,000 people at the Millennium March on Washington and he gave a stirring speech about the AIDS epidemic in front of 40,000 people in Chicago's Soldier Field in July 2006.

Boykin's books have been nominated for a Lambda Literary Award, including his most recent book, Beyond the Down Low: Sex, Lies and Denial in Black America. Boykin won the Lambda Literary Award for his second book, Respecting The Soul, while his first book, One More River to Cross, is taught in colleges and universities throughout the country.

His newest book is For Colored Boys Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Still Not Enough: Coming of Age, Coming Out, and Coming Home. It responds to the crisis of youth development and suicide in the black community, specifically among young gay men of color. 

Kelly Brown Douglas

Kelly Brown Douglas is the Professor and Chair of Philosophy and Religion at Goucher College.  

Dr. Douglas recently published What's Faith Got to Do With It?: Black Bodies/Christian Souls. Douglas's book explores provocative questions about the role of Christianity in African-American history, including slavery and racism, and discusses the complexity of Christian faith in African-American culture.

Douglas, an ordained Episcopal minister, taught theology at the Divinity School of Howard University in Washington, D.C. for fourteen years.  She holds a bachelor's degree in psychology and master's and doctoral degrees in divinity and systematic theology. A leading voice in the development of a womanist theology, Essence magazine counts Douglas "among this country's most distinguished religious thinkers, teachers, ministers, and counselors."  Her other books include The Black Christ and Sexuality and the Black Church, a Womanist Perspective.