UNC graduate Donovan Livingston comes back to speak after viral graduation speech

Donovan Livingston made the world listen to him in 2016. Now he is coming to UNC to speak.

In May 2016, Livingston, a 2009 UNC graduate, performed a spoken word poem at his graduation ceremony from the Harvard Graduate School of Education titled “Lift Off,” a poem chronicling racial divisions and struggles in contemporary society. In the months after, Livingston’s speech went viral, viewed and shared hundreds of thousands of times.

On Friday, Livingston is coming to UNC to give a speech as part of Carolina R.I.S.E.’s Speaker Series. The series brings graduates to campus to network with students and provide role models. The series aims to demonstrate the variety of life paths open to current UNC students.

The event on Friday is in collaboration with UNC’s Movement of Youth, which Livingston is a former member of. Livingston served as a mentor to younger UNC students through the organization.

Movement of Youth President Tonesha Curenton said mentoring continues to serve a vital role in the Movement of Youth program, long after Livingston left UNC.

“Giving back to youth, helping them prepare, you work with students of color, usually like minorities, and some of the resources aren’t available to minorities,” Curenton said. “Having a role model or someone older to look up to is really important.”

R.I.S.E. attempted to bring Livingston in as a speaker in 2016, but conflicting schedules did not let that happen.

Livingston will also be selling copies of his new book at the speech. R.I.S.E. plans for the speech to encourage discussion.

Livingston completed his undergraduate degree at UNC and went on to study at Harvard University, Columbia University and UNC-Greensboro.

“I hope he’ll talk about his experiences at Carolina and leaving Carolina and attending Ivy League universities and what the differences are for him,” R.I.S.E. President Jaylyn Perry said.

“We’re definitely getting into the nuances of his minority identity as a black male and how that shapes his experiences as well. We’ll definitely be talking about his experiences.”

R.I.S.E. member Kenya Lee said she was moved by Livingston’s past work and considers him to be an inspiration.

“I think that he’s a very inspirational alumnus, and I wish I could be there, but I think his speech will be — I think it’s really timely and I’m really excited that they got him to come in,” she said.

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