Some people say I have a gambling problem. No, its not that I go and lose hundreds of dollars in casinos, but rather I take too many lofty risks based mostly on hope. An example of this is when I dropped out of school in 2007 to go and work for then Senator Barack Obama’s Presidential Campaign. As an African-American male, leaving behind a full scholarship at one of America’s most prestigious private universities wasn’t received well by anyone. In fact, there was even some campaign staff that didn’t think it was a good idea. But I took a risk because for the first time ever, I felt I could make a difference because a politician believed in my generation and me.

Fast-forward four years later, and many young people and black people have started to wonder if President Obama will keep true to candidate Obama promises and rhetoric. Admittedly, I was one of those critics, but after yesterday’s State Department decision to reassess the Keystone XL pipeline; I feel the tide shifting dramatically. When I started at the Sierra Club in May, I was told about this lofty goal to organize young people to try and stop this pipeline and I thought that will be extremely difficult before the end of year. Nonetheless, in August, the Sierra Student Coalition gathered its top 50 youth leaders in St. Louis, MO to talk about our work for the upcoming semester, and there our “Stop Keystone” youth campaign was launched.