Help Me Make Sure Black People are on the Agenda at SXSW

There is a saying in organizing “if you’re not at the table, you might just be on the menu.” There are a whole series of powerful conferences and convenings like Davos, Aspen Ideas, TED and SXSW where lots of brilliant changemakers come together and envision what our collective futures look like. Lots of energy and financial resources follow these ideas. But in many of these spaces Black people, in particular, aren’t helping to imagine what that future looks like. I’m hoping to change that and I’ll need your help to do it. 

I’ve proposed a talk for South by Southwest (SXSW) titled “There are Black People in the Future.” This talk is a call to action for the audience to listen to and create space for the dreams of Black people.  A fellow futurist and friend David Bickham says that the I Have a Dream speech is a futurist speech, that Black people have always been able to tell the rest of the country what is coming next. If you create space for and invest in the radical imagination of Black people, you create a better society for everyone.

I want to bring this idea to SXSW. Sessions at SXSW are selected through a panel picker process, which means that voting decides whose voices are heard. I’m asking that you vote for my session and that you share this post with your own networks. Voting is only open from August 6th to 18th, and here is what you need to do: 

1. Visit the SXSW PanelPicker (between Aug 6-18, 2024) at https://panelpicker.sxsw.com/.

2. Sign up for an account if you don’t already have one. (You may need to verify your email first.) 

3. Log in using your email and password and search "There are Black People in the Future."

4. Click the "Vote Up" button. (And share with a friend!)