Community Events and Conversations – dare to be powerful.
Better to Speak’s first community event took place in 2018 – “Unbought and Unbossed: Black Women’s Political Power” – and explored how Black women continue to make history in politics to not only run for office but also empower Black and other marginalized communities to vote and be civically engaged.
‘unbought and unbossed: Black women’s political power’ panel (2018)
Since then, Better to Speak has hosted a handful of other community dialogues and participated in several community panels that covered topics including entrepreneurship, political power, journalism, and social justice advocacy as it pertains to Black youth.
Through the Community Conversations series, Better to Speak aims to bring back our own hosted events to collaborate with partners and empower attendees to transform silence into language and action.
Our community event partnerships in 2020-21 allowed us to learn about and experience workshop and facilitation formats that will inform our upcoming capacity-building programming, and realize the importance of investing in those opportunities to expand Better to Speak reach to additional community partners and community members. Thank you so to each and every organization that invited Better to Speak to participate in their event!
Showing up for Racial Justice in D.C.
This panel was a part of John Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) Black Student Union’s inaugural Black history month programming. I had the opportunity to speak to SAIS students alongside Allegra Massaro, co-founder of Fuel the People.
We discussed racial justice in D.C. and how young Black people can get involved with social justice causes. For example, Fuel the People focuses on community kitchens in both D.C. and NYC, specifically to feed protestors and those on the frontlines, in partnership with Black and POC-owned restaurants. Learn more, donate, and sign up to volunteer here.
Breaking Racial Barriers: Activism, Allyship, Advocating
This was a workshop hosted by Keyallah Majeed, a journalist with teen-led media publication VOX ATL, for the organization’s Black History Month programming.
Keyallah and her peers discussed the distinct definitions of activism, allyship, and advocacy, and specifically unpacked the differences between true activism and allyship between performative activism and allyship with interactive activities that opened up the discussion and invited participants to reflect on their understanding.
Better to Speak was invited to speak with participating VOX teens about our work, our perspective on the differences between activism, allyship, and advocating, and how they can find ways to get involved in social justice movements.
READ: Young People Are the Movement. Here’s Why. by Mikayla Kendall for VOX ATL
Turning Power Into Action
This panel was a part of The Silhouette Brand’s FieldFest Conference – which was a virtual summit for young Black leaders, creatives, and entrepreneurs primarily based in Springfield, Massachusetts.
I spoke alongside Russell L. Boyd II, who was then the National Field Organizer for the NAACP’s Youth and College Division.
We discussed Black youth’s leadership and the power of our voices for social change, as well as healthy coping mechanisms for Black youth in navigating the reality of systemic racism as we navigate our personal and professional lives.
Using Your Voice for Social Change
In our first Community Conversations event – the official name of the event series for our community dialogues – we discussed what it means to use your voice for social change with Kayden Skeete, founder, and creator of The Social Justice Project. Kayden was a contributing writer for Your Silence Will Not Protect You and she is also a journalist for VOX ATL.
We offered the above reflection questions to our audience before our discussion with Kayden. We repurposed this content into a post of questions on our Instagram page.
Check out more of Kayden’s work with VOX ATL:
Have an idea for a community dialogue topic that you’d like to collaborate with Better to Speak to execute? For partnership inquiries with Better to Speak, reach out here!
