The day starts early in the morning. After introductory remarks from Rex Richardson, the vice mayor of Long Beach, Ramsey Jay Jr. comes up to the lectern.
He’s in his thirties, with a shaved head, thin athletic build and sharply dressed in a suit and tie. He takes command of the room as he delivers his hour-long keynote, “Empowering Dreamers to Become Achievers.”
“Preparation in the 21st century, particularly for men and women of color, we’ve got to be prepared for opportunities before we even may know they’re around the corner,” Jay says at the start of his address. “Because they’re not going to come twice, most likely. We’ve got to be prepared for what’s around the corner even though we may not know what it is.”
This lesson of preparation is a major part of Jay’s motivational speaking. It’s why he was invited by Cal State University Long Beach’s Men’s Success Initiative to be the keynote speaker at their second Men of Color Conference held Feb. 10 at The Pointe conference center in the Walter Pyramid.
According to Dunbar, the MSI was launched along with the Highly Valued Degree Initiative in 2010. After CSULB administration ran the numbers, officials found that not only were African-American and Latino males the smallest populations of students on campus, they were the least likely to graduate. Events like the MOCC and speakers like Jay are intended to help reinforce lessons of perseverance for men of color, with the ultimate goal of raising graduation rates for this demographic.
“I wanted to be encouraging with this conference,” says Anthony Dunbar, the staff coordinator from CSULB’s Student Life and Development department, who organized the day’s events. ”My goal is to inform them of ways that emotions and uncertainties can still positively lead you.”
Jay’s keynote is full of anecdotes and personal history about his life. About growing up in Ventura, California learning discipline through track and field, to earning his degree of Business Administration at CSU Fresno and a master’s from Dartmouth. How he eventually pushed himself from Wall Street financing as far as the White House, where he delivered the opening remarks at an event celebrating the life of Ray Charles in 2016 as the lead-in to former President Barack Obama.
After the keynote address, Jay and Dunbar lead the group on a series of breakout sessions. They relay stories about their own lives to each other, stories of how they’ve had to confront feelings of discomfort, overcome challenges and best strive for success.
After one young man’s story about being mocked by peers for trying to improve his own life ends, Jay gets up to speak.
“A lot of times in college I got laughed at for being the nerd on the bus that was reading Forbes magazine,” says Ramsey Jay, Jr., the leader of the day’s events. The group of young men at the table laugh at this opening to an anecdote.
“But no one’s laughing now,” says Jay. “I’m not saying that to brag. I’m saying that that behavior has ultimately created who I am now. Those guys are now close followers. If I had stayed where I was I wouldn’t be able to be who I am and now I’m able to help a lot of those guys.”
Throughout the day Jay elaborates on his philosophy of the “3 P’s” of working to make things “possible, probable and predictable.” He brings up 12 pieces of advice for success such as “Get comfortable being uncomfortable” and leads the gathered students and faculty through an exercise to find their “quintessential motivator,” a person in their life that gives them a reason to go on. It’s an exercise that leaves a few men in tears.
“I thought it was great,” says Bert Rivera, regional recruitment director for the nonprofit City Year and recent hire for CSULB’s Career Development Center. “Ramsey Jay Jr., he had a real talent to communicate the perspective of coming from a place where you may not have all the resources, all the benefits, all the opportunities but how to be self-empowered. To really take agency at the next steps in life.”
Though only around 35 men fill the conference throughout the day of speeches, questions and interaction, both Jay and Dunbar speak of attendees passing on the lessons learned to other students throughout the year. Dunbar encourages those at the conference and who may have missed it to come to MSI meetings every Wednesday at 3 p.m. in the Multicultural Center, Faculty Offices building 3.
“One of the things that I enjoy about Ramsey is the empowerment of the individual to go out and spread the word,” says Dunbar. “Now it’s [about] taking these twenty to thirty guys and reconnecting and making sure that they’re implementing what they did today . . . I need for them to come and learn and take that knowledge with them and keep it. That’s what success is.”