Black History, Black Culture, Black Futures Speakers
Our Black History, Black Culture, and Black Futures speakers are writers, thinkers, and changemakers who draw from lived experience at the intersections of race, class, gender, and identity, bringing nuance, urgency, and authenticity to the conversations we need most. With clarity and compassion, they engage audiences on the issues shaping our world and spark real change and human flourishing.
Trevor Baldwin
Nephew of James Baldwin and Baldwin Legacy Keeper | Cultural Curator and Community Leader | Literary Advocate
“I reintroduce audiences to Uncle Jimmy’s contemporary relevance. Through my stories, people become interested in the courage of his life choices and they are then inspired to “go the way your blood beats” and live boldly.”
davarian l. Baldwin
Internationally recognized Black scholar | urbanist | cultural critic | Public Advocate | Acclaimed Author
Leading urbanist, historian, cultural critic, Black social movements scholar, and author Davarian L. Baldwin believes that reflecting on past and current Black social movements and leaders is essential for this moment.
“James Baldwin is an essential cultural touchstone to return to because of his courage, force of nature, ethical posture, faithfulness to everyday people, impatience with pettiness, and all qualities held with flare and wit.”
amrita chakrabarti myers
African American Scholar | Award-winning Archival Historian and Author | Private Detective of History
“I uplift the untold. People in power dictate our historical narratives by suppressing what doesn’t fit neatly. It’s time to reveal the stories that didn’t make the narrative and dismantle the unjust systems holding us all back.”
Bridgett m. Davis
AWARD-WINNING MEMOIRIST AND FILMMAKER | JOURNALIST | ADVOCATE for Black Women and Their Stories
“On what would’ve been my sister’s 65th birthday, I wrote a letter to her, and in it I explored some of the milestones in her life. That’s when I realized she’d lived through so many cultural touchstones; her life’s events were resonant beyond their individual impact on her, but also more broadly as markers of Black life from the mid-to-late 20th century. That’s when I committed to writing this memoir, with two goals in mind: To honor my sister, and to highlight what America’s structural racism looks like through the lens of a personal, lived experience.”
Tony Keith Jr.
Black and Gay Award-winning Poet | Spoken Word Artist | AFRICAN AMERICAN VERNACULAR ENGLISH (AAVE) and Hip Hop Pedagogy Expert
“I hope folks understand the value of having cultural centers, diverse faculty and staff, and student organizations that represent communities of color at PWI’s, is that they function as places and spaces for belonging on campus and in the classroom. In the book, I share my experience learning about the histories of Black Student Unions (BSU) and participating in open mic events and poetry slams. I needed to be around people who looked like me. Those moments helped me develop a positive Black identity, and reinforced the “knowledge of self” philosophy I gained through my first year at an HBCU. In a way, they helped me battle the Boogeyman disguised as internalized racism.”
Lee Hawkins
Pulitzer Prize Finalist Journalist and Author | 19 years at WSJ | Podcast Creator and Host | Fearless Storyteller | Expert on the history and impacts of slavery and racism
“There are millions of Black Americans in this country who lived through Jim Crow apartheid, who are alive today. Any Black person who’s over 60 years old, who grew up in the South is a Jim Crow survivor. That’s what I call them survivors of American apartheid. And I think that’s important. It’s important to teach our children and to study the impact that it has had on families in the American family of all races.”
joel christian gill
Award-winning Cartoonist, Author, and Educator | Bestselling Illustrator | National Advocate for Sharing Stories
“I’m here to tell you that Black history is my history and your history. It is everybody’s history. It’s our responsibility to go out and celebrate our history every day. 28 days are not enough.”
danyel smith
Former Editor-in-Chief of VIBE | Award-winning Music Journalist | Podcast Creator | Acclaimed Author | Leader of Shine Bright HQ
“There’s a clip of Diana Ross where she talks about self-worth… I’m paraphrasing her, but she says, when she was a teenager, she always used to say, “Well, I’m gonna do this. I’m going to learn how to do this dance, or I’m going to be a singer.” And there would be that negative voice also in her head that said, “No, you’re not. Why would you think that you could do that?” And she said she really started growing up and coming into herself when she started being her own second voice and co-signing herself. Because she was worth it and because she could do it. And so you have to remind yourself, or let me use the pronoun that is always difficult for me to use: “I” need to remind myself, always, that my story is worth telling. ”
nicholas buccola
Political Theorist and Philosopher | Awarding-winning Author | Expert of American Political Thought | African-American Social Movements Expert
“Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is somebody who forces us to grapple with big moral questions about how we ought to live together. He really forces us to confront questions that are central to our political lives.”
rima vesely-flad
Bestselling Author | Black Buddhist Studies Founder | Black Radical Thought Scholar
“I saw myself as capable. But I did not see myself as powerful and fierce. I reckoned with my penchant for self-silencing; I was wired to make myself safe. But I was inspired by Baldwin and Lorde to face my own suffering—the absences, the hatred—and perhaps in doing so, to cultivate a deep sense of authority within my own being.”
john jennings
Black Culture Champion | Hugo and Eisner Award Winner | NYT Bestselling Author | Illustrator | Design Theorist
“Afrofuturism is looking backwards to move forward. I think it’s a disservice to the past to forget it. We have to understand where we’ve come from. Think about what we’ve survived. Think about the positive aspects and move forward.”
jasmine brown
Doctor | Advocate for Representation in Medicine | Rhodes Scholar | Acclaimed Author
“While pursuing medicine, I was the target of prejudice. Many Black students experience prejudice. If we want to increase diversity within medicine, we need to do more to support Black students and celebrate our achievements.”
Brando Simeo Starkey
Groundbreaking Historian Fighting for Justice and Freedom from Caste | Law and Policy Expert | Author
“Be brave. We can reform society with a focused framework. We often try to fight racial injustice with an anti-discrimination framework. Yet, to make real change, we need to expunge not discrimination but what I call castework.”
allissa v. Richardson
AI and Reparative Journalism Visionary | Award-winning Author and Scholar of Race, Media, and Activism | Black Media Expert
“I build technologies that remember—so the world can’t forget. Each line of code holds a testimony, each archive a reckoning. My work gathers what injustice tried to erase, and reimagines what justice has yet to be.”
ladee hubbard
AWARD-WINNING NOVELIST | African american history and culture scholar
“I’m fascinated with my generation, the generation of Black people that grew up in what was sometimes called "the post-civil rights era." We were coming to maturity during a period of time where people were sort of living within and with the victories of the civil rights movement. And that meant that for those Black people who could afford it, there were increasing opportunities to move to different neighborhoods, go to different schools and get different jobs. And [I wrote The Last Suspicous Holdout because] I was very interested in the real effects of that movement and the repercussions of the civil rights movement during that period.”