Thought-Provoking Keynotes

Inspirational speakers for commencement or keynote programs – with messages that will stay with your audience

Spencer Overton

Author of Stealing Democracy: The New Politics of Voter Suppression, President of the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, and former Justice Department official.

Andres Oppenheimer

Pulitzer Prize winning Latin American journalist, and international authority on the influence of Latin America in the global economy.

Charles Neblett

Original Civil Rights Movement Freedom Singer – Civil and Human Rights Activist. President and founder of Community Projects, Inc.

Suzan Shown Harjo

President of The Morning Star Institute. Poet, writer, lecturer and policy advocate, who has helped Indigenous peoples protect sacred places and recover more than one million acres of land.

Organized crime reporter Moldea has covered the widespread impact of “the mob” on business, the entertainment industry, government, and sports for many years, and survived at least one contract on his life.

Jim Lucas

Jim Lucas travels nationwide, delivering hundreds of performances of Dr. Martin Luther King’s I Have a Dream, I’ve Been to the Mountaintop and other works in a dramatic one-man show.

Annie Leonard

Executive Director for Greenpeace USA and widely known for her documentary The Story of Stuff, Leonard is dedicated to ecological sustainability. Her criticism of excessive consumerism challenges what we make, use and throw away.

Robert Kirshner

Part of the Nobel-Award winning research team on “cosmic expansion” — takes his audience inside the world of dark energy, exploding stars, and the accelerating universe.

Arsalan Iftikhar

Islamic Human Rights attorney, media commentator, and founder of TheMuslimGuy.com, Iftikhar is a voice in the battle against growing Islamophobia in America.

Lewis Hyde

Writer, translator, scholar and poet whose work focuses on the nature of imagination, creativity and “the art of forgetting” as it appears in myth, politics, art and spiritual life.

Emily Hunter

An environmental activist, Hunter’s documentary series Activism 2.0 shows the new wave of environmentalism of grassroots movements.

Rinku Sen

Rinku brings an innovative approach to complex race issues to help people take effective action toward racial equity through research, media, and practice.

Ted Conover

Pulitzer Prize finalist and National Book Award winning author who has worked as a correctional officer in a prison, and traveled from Mexico to the US with migrants crossing the border.

Kate Clinton

Award-winning political humorist, feminist, and crusader for LGBTQ rights, Clinton has been called “a savvy, witty observer of American life”, and uses humor as a tool for social change.

Lorene Cary

Powerful storyteller, educator, and social activist delivering autobiographical, historical, and fictional stories about issues surrounding race and class.

Chuck Collins

Scholar, author, disruptor, activist. With over two decades of wealth distribution reform, Chuck has devoted his life to bridging the economic divide despite being born into the top 1%.

Jeff Lieberman

Scientist, musician, roboticist, and sculptor Jeff Lieberman combines his passions for art and science in ways that reveal how one influences the other. Art meets science through interaction, connection, and challenged perception.

Arn Chorn-Pond

Renowned human rights activist, musician and Cambodian genocide survivor. Inspiring change with incredible stories of hope, endurance, and survival through the power of music.