About Us

Dr. Bettina Love writes that "dreams are not whimsical, unattainable daydreams, they are critical and imaginative dreams of collective resistance". In the early days of this bitter summer, as helicopters flew overhead, echoes of "Black Lives Matter" resounded on the streets, and the Coronavirus pounded our communities, we dreamed in critical and imaginative ways of collective resistance. We dreamed for our students.

This conference grew out of a small book club among friends. My friend, Dr. Kandice Sumner recommended Dr. Bettina Love's We Want to do More Than Survive for my summer reading. As I read the book, I experienced a paradigm shift as I saw my teaching practice in a new light. I had been teaching kids the history of marginalized communities, but not about the "kings and queens". I had been teaching kids about our nation's complicit role in the oppression of BIPOC communities, but not how those communities organize and advocate for themselves. I had been writing lessons and units of resistance, but with my classroom door closed which did nothing to help my BIPOC students in the bigger picture. I had always taught a version of anti-racism, but the concept of abolitionist teaching was what I needed to guide my work.

At some point in those early days, this crazy idea popped into my head--what if Dr. Love herself could join our little book club? Before she said "yes", we had a group of 30 teachers in Massachusetts and Washington. With Dr. Love onboard, the numbers grew to hundreds. Soon after, a group of volunteers from Washington to Massachusetts, D.C. to Tennessee and beyond assembled to organize what was becoming a conference.

It was at the prodding of my co-conspirators who volunteered to guide this work, that we began to dream bigger, because why don't we, they asked, make a book club meeting for different content-area teachers. A math teacher needs different tools than a science teacher, than an English teacher, than an early childhood teacher. At this point, our school district and our local community foundation had stepped forward to support our work, as well as dozens of donators on GoFundMe. We could afford to dream bigger.

This summer, spaces have opened in which teachers began to speak more openly and frankly about anti-racism and abolitionist teaching. We read abolitionist authors and watched abolitionist webinars. Our team wanted to build on the work of those educators who came before us and bring something new: a conference that would offer specialized training for all content areas led by the nation's leading BIPOC scholars who would merge the latest abolitionist research with the teaching practice that happens in classrooms every day.

Dozens of scholars answered the call to lead our work; some of the greatest minds in America. Thousands of educators answered the call to take on the work: over 7,000 from all 50 states and 24 countries.

I believe what has been happening among educators this summer is a turning of the page, a new chapter in education in a long history of educator activism. Revolution is in the air. It is our honor to dream and imagine and resist alongside you all for a better future. For our students.