02/18/2026
Please join The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute and Stanford in Government for a fireside chat between Rep. Ro Khanna (CA-17) and Rep. Jim Clyburn (SC-6) on Rep. Clyburn’s new book, The First Eight: A Personal History of the Pioneering Black Congressmen Who Shaped a Nation this Wednesday, February 18 from 4-5:30pm in Stanford Law School Room 290. 150 copies of the book will be available to attendees.
Rep. Ro Khanna has served as the U.S. representative from California’s 17th congressional district since 2017 as a member of the Democratic Party. Rep. Khanna was elected in 2016 after beating an 8-term incumbent in the Democratic primary and doesn’t take PAC donations. He serves on the Armed Services Committee, Oversight Committee and the House Select Committee on the CCP.
Rep. James E. Clyburn is the Congressman representing South Carolina’s 6th Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives, where he previously served as Majority Whip. A more than 30-year Congressional veteran, he has been an influential and effective legislative leader and an unwavering voice for civil rights. Born in Sumter, South Carolina, during the Jim Crow era, he has been awarded the NAACP’s highest honor – the Spingarn Medal, the Lyndon Baines Johnson Foundation’s Liberty and Justice for All Award, the Harry S. Truman Foundation’s Good Neighbor Award, and holds honorary degrees from 40 colleges and universities. In 2024, he was bestowed the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor in the United States.
South Carolina’s first eight Black congressmen were elected after the Civil War. Nearly a century later, Rep. Clyburn became the ninth. In his new book, Rep. Clyburn shares the personal stories of the eight men who blazed a path for his own political career
