MILWAUKEE — Twenty-three-year-old Deon Canon is now a college graduate.

“I saw all my grades from my capstone class and I got a 94%,” he said. “I was like, ‘Ok, I did it, I actually graduated.’”

The Milwaukee native went to UW-Stout. He lives on the North Side, an area known for crime. It was quite a change attending school in rural Menomonie.

“I think it really changed my perspective, being away from home,” he said.  “Like, it’s not normal to hear gunshots every night.”

Canon hopes he can be an inspiration and a guide for his six younger siblings.

“They have someone who went to college, so they’ll know about the FAFSA and dealing with loans,” he said. “I hope to be a resource for them in that way.”

Canon didn’t have much help when he went to college. He’s a first-generation college graduate, meaning he’s the first person in his entire family to attend, let alone graduate.

Despite his accomplishments, Canon says being Black at a mostly white university posed many challenges.

“Coming from Milwaukee to a rural community and a smaller community and working closer with white individuals,” he said. “I grew up in Milwaukee in a predominantly Black neighborhood in a predominantly Black school.”

After battling depression and feeling as if he didn’t fit in, Canon eventually got elected to be Student Association President. He was drawn more and more to activism as well.

It’s how he met Professor Jim Handley. 

“I teach a class called Non-violence in Civil Rights Struggles,” Handley said. “I led a trip to Ferguson Missouri, then Selma, Montgomery, Birmingham and Memphis and Deon went on that trip.”

He also accompanied Handley, along with a group of other students, to Standing Rock, North Dakota.

“He spent his whole day and evening helping the water protectors and those experiences were really growing experiences for him,” Handley said.

“That was the most eye-opening experience of my entire college career, being around the Indigenous community,” Canon  said. “It made me realize every group has its problems and we’re not that different.”

Canon is a double-major, graduating with degrees in politics and communications.  He plans to work a job that allows him to give back to his community, whether that be for a non-profit or in a political role.

“I know things need to change for, hopefully, the better,” he said. “I don’t know exactly yet what my part is in that, but I’m more than willing to do it.”

Canon received the Outstanding Student Leader of the Year Award. He also received the Alex Kirby Memorial Award for Leadership in Social Justice and the Samuel E. Wood Medallion, the university’s highest non-academic award for students.

Additionally, he was awarded the Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarship, the largest undergraduate scholarship program in the nation that supports study abroad. While completing courses on campus, he studied World Cultural History virtually at University of London’s Richmond College.