“Without new visions, we don’t know what to build, only what to knock down.”

Robin D.G. Kelley

Now accepting proposals for Cultivating Black and Native Futures in Education, a free virtual conference for scholars, artists, organizers, educators, activists, youth, and practitioners to convene in the spirit of radical joy, love, solidarity, and building what Ashon Crawley has termed “otherwise worlds” or what Leanne Betasamosake Simpson has called a “radical alternative present.”

What does it look like for Black and Indigenous peoples to know our shared history as survivors of state violence, genocide, and settler colonialism, and move together toward imagining collective liberation and celebration of ourselves, one another, our people, and the land/waterways?

How can we work to make educational learning spaces-- inside and outside of schools/institutions-- as sites of exploratory and experiential learning, community accountability and answerability, resurgence and rematriation, and the forwarding of Black and Indigenous futures?

We recognize that conversations about racism and settler colonialism may often center in trauma-- immediate and multigenerational-- and while we acknowledge the importance of these stories, we also believe that, to quote Eve Tuck, “even when communities are broken and conquered, they are so much more than that—so much more that this incomplete story is an act of aggression.” We hope that this convening can be a space of healing and possibility, of thinking forward and drawing on ancestral legacies of desire, dreams, and decolonialism. This gathering is an exploration, a chance to try a way of collective learning, thinking, challenging, and growing. A time and place to inspire, wonder, vision, act, restore, and regenerate. We will not have all the answers, but we look forward to building relations together. 

Please submit proposals for:

• Skill Sharing Workshops: pedagogical praxis for the classroom, streets, and/or workplace  

• Panel Discussions

• Research Presentations

• Performances/Artist’s Talks

• Coalition Building: space to facilitate and organize with interested folx, pose a question or topic that you want to discuss, (possibly with targeted audience).

• Book and/or Music Discussions: facilitated sharing of impactful books/music

We especially invite sessions that explore the following themes: storytelling/sharing family narratives, land and water rematriation, abolition, land & foodways, organizing and leading youth movements for justice and solidarity, Native/Black queer and trans brilliance, as well as teaching and writing new narratives of Black/Native lives.

Proposals due March 5, 2021.

Convened by Amanda Tachine & Eve L. Ewing.