Bucks County NAACP Hosts ‘Black History and Democracy at Risk’ Town Hall

In the wake of the 2024 presidential election, communities across the country are still reeling after the results which saw Republicans win the presidency, the house and senate decisively. 

Many discussions have focused on what can be done now, and what needs to happen in the near and long future. Kevin LaVigne Antoine, J.D., a former Air Force veteran who became the Black person to be nominated by either political party in Mississippi’s 4th district in 1996 and has since become an author and award-winning filmmaker, has put himself in the middle of these discussions. He was Bucks County Community College’s Chief Diversity Officer and Associate Vice President for Student and Veterans Affairs from January 2020 until February 2025. Antoine also served on Newtown Township Human Relations Commission.

At the Middletown Township Municipal Center on Monday, Antoine moderated an event titled ‘Black History and Democracy at Risk: A Community Town Hall’. The meeting was jointly held by the Bucks County chapter of the NAACP and Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. Omega Zeta Omega Chapter of Bucks County. Before the forum, Dawn Morgan Moore performed the Black National Anthem ‘Life Every Voice and Sing’. There was also a spoken word performance by a local children’s group, Amplify Black Brilliance, and a performance by Giada Leigh, a tap dancer who is currently in the cast of ‘Jelly’s Last Jam’ at the Bristol Riverside Theater.

The lively discussion hosted by Antoine covered several topics, including what a hypothetical Project 2028 would look like if Democrats win the presidency and a majority in Congress, a play on The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 that helped Trump start consolidating power in the executive branch right after being sworn in.

“The state’s Attorney General’s and the state’s bar associations need to be looking at what these federal lawyers are doing right now in how they infringe on state laws. Trump can pardon them if it’s federal law, but if it’s some state laws that are being broken, or if there is some unethical conduct, like the lawyer who kept showing up in the Virginia Courtroom when the judge told her to get out, that already told her she couldn’t practice there, the bar needs to be looking into that,” he stated.

Antoine also mentioned that states should amend the oath of the national guard so that they say their allegiance is to the governors of the state, and not the president. “It is very rare that a president activates the military. Eisenhower did it to integrate Little Rock. The Kennedy Administration did it to integrate Ole Miss. Those were noble causes,” he said. “They didn’t show up with masks on and drag you out of your house in the middle of the night.”

At one point during the discussion, an audience member said that there should be qualifications for cabinet positions, which Antoine said he was very on board with. He argued that getting rid of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) officers, who would have told President Trump he needs to look for more qualified candidates of different backgrounds, could have prevented certain cabinet positions from getting picked.

 “People have their own biases now with DEI, but I think what it showed to me was that once they (The Trump Administration) outlawed it and made it the boogeyman, how quick people ran from it, and I mean quick.”

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Later, an attendee asked what can be done to increase the size of meetings, and what action can be taken to cause more change. “I would just say you got to keep meeting. You have got to educate (the public), each one, bring one, that sort of thing. This is more people than I expected, with it being a Monday night and cold,” said Antoine. 

At the end of the meeting, Antoine gave the attendees a call to action. “There is a lot going on with this right to vote. It’s basically suppression and coming up with all kinds of schemes. There is going to be all kinds of activity on the day of the election, and they will try to scare people to get out of line. That’s why now the governors that we have in these states that are friendly to us, they need to get together and start doing some stuff.”

“You can’t act alone anymore like that, because the opposition is lined up against you. We can’t have any solo heroes,” he added. “We need to plan an operation of what we’re going to do, and we need massive turnout. That’s what we need. We need to treat Election Day like ‘No Kings’ Day.”