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Meet Keiona Williamson

Sacramento Native, Founder, Journalist and Entrepreneur

“I want every person in this world to be able to wake up and not have to worry about survival because we have enough technology to not have to hunt and gather in the same ways. We can spend our time with focused energy on self-actualization for human development and connection, advancement, and protection of our planet.”

Para leer esta historia en español

Where does your story begin?

My story begins when a 17-year-old high schooler, Demeshia Jones, and a young Lionel Williamson, fresh home from the military, meet as she’s walking home from school during her senior year at Luther Burbank High School in Sacramento. They are attracted to each other, become bonded, and get pregnant with me four months later. So, I am shaped by their circumstances and history. My story starts and predates birth because I understand that I am a reflection of who I decide to be and that historical context shapes who I am.

For a long time, I was driven by the idea that I needed to make the world better. I desired for my parents and family to experience a profound sense of freedom and liberation. That idea not only politicized my outlook but has also shaped my work, providing me with a wise and critical perspective on the historical harm caused by 400 years of slavery and the subsequent institutionalized racism in my upbringing.

I was a child when I took up writing, which was my first love. Many of the stories that I read and wrote were slave narratives. I was always so attracted to stories of people who had incredibly difficult circumstances and empowered themselves to escape or defy the odds while still being able to embody mental, spiritual, and physical self-love and liberation. I felt validated by the stories I wrote and regularly submitted them to writing contests, often winning. 

My family and community recognized my ability to think and express myself intellectually from a young age.  

I eventually decided to attend college at Howard University in Washington, D.C., where I majored in political science. I felt called to experience a historically Black college and university for myself. Attending Howard was an intentional and important decision that has shaped my life. 

Moments of History and Synergy

I often find myself in circumstances right at the turn of what was and what will be. That has been true so many times in my life. I have been in the center of transition and change and use that to progressively build an understanding of how things move, evolve, or shift into the future. 

The night President Obama won his second reelection, we stormed the streets and walked from campus to the White House. We were all in Blackburn Auditorium on Howard University’s campus, watching as the election results were coming down. When they called it, it was just joy and excitement. The aftermath was like a party and parade; we all walked to the White House and had house parties afterward. It was as Black American of an experience as you could have had.

I also remember when he won in 2008. We lived on Broadway and Santa Cruz in Sacramento’s Oak Park neighborhood. I went with my grandmother to vote at the church around the corner. When he won the election, everybody was in the streets screaming.

Oak Park is a historically affluent white neighborhood that Black folks eventually moved into, and it became predominantly Black and working class.  People’s grandparents, as mine did, owned their houses, but it wasn’t considered a good neighborhood.  Now, a billion-dollar Aggie Square project is happening, which is part of the UC Davis Medical Center. It’s interesting.

I attended a K-5 school, and the middle school was 6th-8th grade. During my fifth grade year, they changed it to a K-6 school, and the middle school became 7th-8th grade. So, I was part of the first class of students who attended 6th grade at that school.  

In high school, I worked for  Kevin Johnson , the first Black mayor of Sacramento, right when the Maloof Brothers were shopping for the Sacramento Kings. They were plans on investing in a new arena, which has driven a lot of economic change in Sacramento, I interned [in the Mayor’s office] during that turning point in high school. So, I’m not just living in Sacramento; I’m watching it change while working for the mayor, leading a lot of that change.  

This culminates at the New York Times. After months of interviews, I finally got the job at the New York Times after working at a local restaurant in New Jersey. I didn’t just get any job. I got a job as an assistant to the Vice President of Ad Sales and publishers of the NYT magazine.

I joined the Times as it was coming into a new chapter. It was beginning to understand and dominate in subscriptions, tech-forward news, and advertising products. 

I got assigned to work on the  1619 Project , a historical narrative on enslavement and its current-day consequences for Black People in America. 

At the time, they were having a hard time selling it for advertising. I remember partnering with Nikole Hannah Jones to pitch and sell advertisements to Black philanthropists, believing that these would be magazine issues people would keep forever.  It ended up becoming one of the bestselling projects for the New York Times.  

After ten years, I eventually returned to Sacramento.  I got a job at the Sacramento Bee—right as they had declared bankruptcy and were bought out by a hedge fund. They were also changing their business model, and  I was right at the center, watching it happen. 

Decoding themes and finding purpose

I’ve gone from being a witness to a contributor to a collaborator, and now I want to lead change and evolution. 

I’ve always wanted to have a meaningful life. If the past indicates the present and the future, I’m starting to realize that I have a history and the capacity to do something big with my life.

Drip, the Community Cafe I founded and operated with my sisters, was one prototype of that. It was me coming back into a city, seeing where it was headed, and what it was missing. I learned a great deal about business, myself, entrepreneurship, and leadership. Though we decided to close it this year, it shaped a new world of what’s possible for me, for Sacramento, and for the multiracial, working-class communities I hope to support. 

Now, whatever happens next, I’m ready. 

I’m not a person who just contributes to the way things are. Any idea that I have or feel is worth pursuing needs to necessitate a shift so that everything else after it operates from a different, evolved, and more functional framework. 

Our world has been dominated for centuries by white dreams. The trend is that these dreams have no regard for life—none. I want whiteness to take a step back and heal, and I want us to re-center the multicultural communities of people who have always had respect for the earth, community, and individual and collective self-determination. I want to create something that helps people vote or pay their water bill, but also to dream and imagine what society can be, with tools to organize ourselves to make that real. My goal and hope is to awaken our populace to realize what it means to be a citizen of democracy and own it. We have the power. I want to create technology that helps people feel the opposite of apathy and supports decision-making that affects our lives and the way we organize society. I want every person in this world to be able to wake up and not have to worry about survival because we have enough technology to not have to hunt and gather in the same ways. We can spend our time with focused energy on self-actualization for human development and connection, advancement, and protection of our planet. One of the best ways to do that is through news, information infrastructure, technical capacity, and resourcing. 

I don’t know if it’s faith or delusion, but the greatest minds of history have somehow convinced themselves that we are supposed to find God within ourselves and arrive at a place where we can show the lengths of the human spirit. 

I recall the narratives of enslaved people that I used to read and write—stories of true liberation. 

I have what it takes to create enterprises that reflect a modern and futuristic way of organizing people, ideas, commerce, and information. The urgency for voices like mine was yesterday. It is time for us—everyone who believes in this kind of collective power.

My purpose is to live, believe in life, and inspire others to do the same.

This story was produced as part of the Sunrise Futures campaign developed by the James B. McClatchy Foundation. It was developed using the StoryEngine methodology, an open-sourced, narrative-based data collection tool developed by Loup Design. 

Copyright James B. McClatchy Foundation. Published on the James B. McClatchy Foundation website using the Creative Commons License https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ : Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)