12 minute read
Vince Evans
RATTLER IN THE HOUSE, WHITE HOUSE, THAT IS FAMU ALUM VINCENT EVANS JOINS OFFICE OF VICE PRESIDENT STAFF
BY [ Jonathan EDOUARD ]
The political tutelage that began on the Florida A&M University campus has taken alum VINCENT EVANS to Tallahassee City Hall, the Statehouse, Congress and finally, the White House.
Evans has been appointed to serve as the new deputy director for the Office of Public Engagement and Intergovernmental Affairs where he and 10 others will be assisting Vice President Kamala Harris.
Evans’ appointment was announced on Twitter by Harris, a little over a week before Inauguration Day, when she explained her reasoning for how she made her selections, saying those chosen to be on her cabinet “reflect the very best of our nation and will help build a country that lifts up all Americans.”
Evans soon responded to the announcement on social media.
“Humbled seems too insufficient a term to describe my feelings today,” Evans wrote. “Thank you, madam Vice President-Elect Kamala Harris, for the profound opportunity and honor to serve you, President-elect [Joe] Biden, your administration and most importantly, the American people.”
Evans began at the grassroots. During Barack Obama’s first presidential run in 2008, Evans organized and mobilized nearly 4,000 students to get out and vote. Having an impact on that historic race whetted his appetite for more politics. Those who know him said his political talent was obvious early on.
Tola Thompson, a friend of Evans and an aide to U.S. Rep. Al Lawson, quickly noticed the potential within Evans, specifically his ability to influence at any level.
“Vince came on my radar while he was an undergrad at FAMU, and [I] immediately recognized that he was one of those rare individuals who possessed the substance, humility, and ability to influence at the next level,” said Thompson, a fellow FAMU alum. “When you run across someone with that kind of talent, you have to encourage them and get out of their way. I’m proud of my friend and know that he will make an impact for the greater good.”
Since graduating from FAMU in 2011, Evans has assisted several FAMU alumni and others with their political aspirations. From 2014 to 2017, he served as an aide to Tallahassee City Commissioner Curtis Richardson. He walked many miles alongside fellow alum, Lawson, as the former state senator made several bids to represent the people of the 5th Congressional District. Later he joined alum and former Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum in 2018 as his political director in his unsuccessful bid for governor.
Lawson had the opportunity to supervise Evans as he served as an aide in his legislative office and watched firsthand how the Jacksonville native’s intangibles have helped him reach his new position.
“Vince is an extraordinary individual who is well prepared for this moment,” said Lawson. “I have seen his growth from an intern in my office in the Florida Senate to working in my Congressional Office. His keen political insights and judgement will serve Vice President Harris well.
“He’s one of those rising stars, that we all need to keep our eye on,” Lawson added.
Commissioner Richardson knows Evans on a more personal level. Both are from Jacksonville. Evans worked on Richardson’s successful bid for re-election to the City Commission. Richardson lauds Evans’ ability to coordinate and effectively plan a campaign while also praising his continued progression in life.
“[Evans] did a great job organizing my campaign and he certainly turned out to be a tremendous aide to me during the time that he [worked] for me on the City Commission,” Richardson said. “He’s just continued on an upward angle since then and I can’t tell you how proud I am of him and the fact that I played a small role in giving him that start that has led him to where he is today.”
Evans was also instrumental in Biden’s 2019 campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination. He served as Biden’s Southern political director. In that role, he was pivotal in the former vice president’s success in winning the crucial South Carolina primary, then gaining momentum to secure the nomination. Evans said his decision to back Biden was a leap of faith.
“I quit my job in the Congress and went to work for a guy by the name of Joe Biden,” declared Evans on his Facebook page, “I did not know what the path ahead looked like for me, but I knew this country was worth fighting for and I had to do all I could…”.
Every time Evans steps into the White House, he is making history and reminding us of what is possible today. That a FAMU grad is working for a barrier-breaking vice president — the first woman, first Asian and African American who is an alumnus of another HBCU, Howard University, cannot be taken lightly. It’s a major responsibility. It’s a role he welcomes.
“I am grateful for the confidence and trust you have placed in me,” Evans wrote on Twitter. “I will go to the White House each day cleareyed about the work that lie ahead: restore the soul of this country and build back better. With deep, deep gratitude — onward.”
Diplomatic Duo
CALVIN & KINDALL HAYES
ARE THE ‘FACE OF AMERICA OVERSEAS’
BY [ Andrew J. SKERRITT ]
What began as a relationship on the “Hill” grounded on their passion for international travel blossomed into a global marriage that has taken Florida A&M University (FAMU) graduates Calvin and Kindall “Sunshine” Hayes to American diplomatic outposts in Africa, Latin America, Asia and the Middle East.
FOR THE COUPLE, their Foreign Service journey is more than a partnership of shared interests. It is deeply rooted in their FAMU experience and their identity as African Americans.
“Being a member of the diplomatic corps, I think about being the face of America overseas and that means being able to show what America truly looks like; America looks like me; America looks like you; America looks like FAMU; America looks like the history of African Americans who have fought so that we can be representatives of our government,” says Calvin during a joint Zoom interview on a Sunday afternoon. He’d just spent two hours in Arabic language training in anticipation of their next overseas posting in Amman, Jordan.
“It’s important to make sure that a person of color is not just in the room but actually sits at the table directing and implementing foreign policy,” he adds. “What we do abroad is a direct reflection of the struggles that we’ve overcome as a country, and we are not perfect.”
While at home, many African Americans experience a certain unease about their Americanness, a Black diplomat overseas does not, Kindall insists.
“Being in the diplomatic corps as a person of color allows us to exercise the full measure of our U.S. citizenship,” she says.
But it also means carrying the heavy burden of history. Calvin talks of “the generations of Black people who have paved the way for us to be representatives of our government; that goes for the people who weren’t recognized as citizens, to the people who fought for the right to vote, the people who integrated the State Department.”
He invokes the names of African Americans such as Frederick Douglass, who served as an ambassador to Haiti, and members of the diplomatic corps like James Weldon Johnson.
“We’ve gone from being recognized as threefifths of a person to now being represented in a space where we are able to influence foreign policy, implement foreign policy and show international audiences what it really means to be a part of the American fabric,” says Calvin, a former Charles B. Rangel International Affairs Fellow who earned a master’s degree in public diplomacy at American University in Washington, D.C.
FAMU Central
FAMU is central to the Hayes’ story. There’s the Grand Ballroom, where he first set eyes on her. He was a sophomore from Orlando running for student government. Kindall Johnson was a freshman from Tampa with big ambitions of her own.
“When she walked into the room, she had on an outfit we call the bad red dress. I told my friend, ‘I’m going to marry that woman,’” Calvin says. “She came in like she owned the room.”
Next time they talked, she called asking about Camp Adventure, a travel program that took him to Germany the previous summer. The following year, she headed for Hong Kong, thanks to Camp Adventure.
Calvin was elected Student Government Association vice president in 2009; Kindall won Miss FAMU in 2010. Calvin graduated that year; she followed a year later. He proposed to her during the 2011 Florida Classic half time show.
“You come to university when you’re 18 years old and you don’t know what’s going to happen. You don’t know what to expect,” she says. “But I think about having met Calvin and how that really made such a difference in my life. I’m so privileged to be yoked in the spiritual way, to be married, to someone who has always advocated for my advancement, development, and growth. That’s big.”
A conversation with the couple feels like a concert and a TedTalk rolled into one; both are in tune, both in harmony; sometimes one leads, the other follows; they change places as if on cue. Former journalism professor Dhyana Ziegler, Ph.D., isn’t surprised to see them excel.
“Calvin and Kindall were excellent students and I had the honor of having them both in my Ethics class at different times,” said Ziegler, who encouraged both to pursue foreign service careers. “Calvin and Kindall are a powerful “Tandem.’”
Calvin spent 2010 summer working as an intern at the U.S Consulate in Pretoria, South Africa. Another internship took him to Djibouti on the Horn of Africa. The couple’s first diplomatic posting was Bangladesh, then they spent two years in Colombia. While stationed in Colombia, Calvin was temporarily assigned to the embassy in Georgetown, Guyana, and they were sent on a short-term assignment together to Quito, Ecuador.
After graduation, Kindall followed Calvin to Washington, where she worked on Capitol Hill before securing a position in the Obama administration. But her passion was both international and domestic. Calvin’s voice of encouragement pushed her forward.
“My greatest fear in getting married was that I would be with someone who made me sit down and be quiet. Calvin is the exact opposite,” she says. “At every opportunity, he’s always said, ‘Do what makes you uncomfortable.’ Not everyone can say that.”
FAMU Connections
After the couple met fellow alum Bernard and Shirley Kinsey during a FAMU Homecoming, that connection resulted in the U.S. Embassy inviting the Kinseys to visit to Colombia in 2019. The Kinseys traveled throughout the South American country as cultural envoys to discuss their impressive art collection and the links between African-American and Afro-Colombian culture.
They were also featured presenters at the Bogota International Book Festival, one of the biggest book fairs in South America. During that assignment, Calvin and Kindall also hosted fellow FAMU alumni James Bland and C.J. Faison, who screened their award-winning web series Giants at an American cultural center in Medellin, Colombia.
In addition to their two-year postings, Kindall has served in Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Egypt. For her, the Cairo assignment was serendipitous. While at FAMU, she took classes in Arabic at Florida State University. After she received admission to an Arabic program at the American University of Cairo, the Arab spring erupted, chaos gripped the country and she couldn’t go.
Kindall recalls the reaction of Egyptians when they come to the embassy to apply for an American visa and encounter a person of color. Some locals mistook her for a native of upper Egypt. “My co-workers called me Cleopatra,” she said with a mischievous smile. “No one in America or in Western culture would ever call me Cleopatra. But their worldview is such that they know that Cleopatra was a woman of color.”
Elite Corps
The diplomatic corps is an elite, skilled, very specialized group of people who are trained and tested. Being admitted into the Foreign Service is competitive — the best and the brightest strive for admission. The foreign service exam is tough.
Diplomats have to be culturally adaptable: During his assignment in Bangladesh, Calvin visited a Buddhist temple, a Hindu temple, a mosque and a church on the same day as part of his job managing the cultural affairs portfolio of the embassy.
Additional highlights of his job have included writing speeches for U.S. Ambassadors, managing federal grants to civil society organizations and connecting young entrepreneurs to resources and investment opportunities. Foreign service officers are expected to remain composed under stressful circumstances.
It’s also a position of immense sacrifice and privilege, Kindall says.
“We’ve signed on to become public individuals in a foreign country to the point that we are always on the job,” she says.
In recent years, other Rattlers have joined the elite corps. Former Famuan editor-in-chief Clarece Polke is training for her next assignment to Egypt following a posting in Kingston, Jamaica. Maurice Jackson, of Miami, followed up his assignment in Ghana with a posting in Haiti, and Jeff Simmons, a current Rangel Fellow, will be assigned to his first diplomatic assignment later this year after completing graduate school at American University.
William T. Hyndman III, Ph.D., FAMU assistant vice president in the Office of International Education and Development, would like to see more Rattlers pursue diplomatic careers.
“There are many opportunities for international jobs with the U.S. government, especially with the Department of State. Serving as a diplomat abroad representing the US is an extraordinary career,” Hyndman says. “Here at FAMU we are fortunate to have a Diplomat in Residence (Sebron CB Toney) who can help our students learn more about careers with the State Department.”
Passport to Success
Calvin recalls being inspired after FAMU alum and former U.S. Ambassador Teddy Taylor spoke to his School of Journalism & Graphic Communication class. Taylor, Ziegler and other mentors like then Diplomat-in-Residence Roberto Powers offered advice and encouragement on the road to the State Department.
The couple knows travel is transformative. If students of color venture abroad, it can open their minds to endless career possibilities. The diplomatic duo created the HayesXChange, a podcast and platform dedicated to sharing the experiences of people of color who have traveled abroad beyond tourism. Their efforts will help 14 students receive passports in spring 2021.
They are also reinvesting in the community they love. In August 2020, they bought an apartment building located in the heart of FAMU’s campus. Whatever the project, it’s always a joint mission, a shared objective.
“It’s about collective success. When we met, we were living on a meal plan and a prayer,” Kindall says. “We’ve seen each other go through so much. There’s nothing like building together.”
