I’ve been attending the Black Male Educator Conference (BMEC) since the very beginning—back in 2015, when 100 Black men teaching in Philadelphia gathered in a room for a radical revival to lift each other up.
I was changed in that room. Surrounded by educated, sharp-dressed (Philly has style!) young men with classroom experience was a rare situation for me, even as someone who had traveled the country visiting schools and attending education conferences.
It was moving to see what was invisible to others, the incredible value of Black men in education.
No one was there to fix a crisis or respond to a scandal. We were there to create a spirit of communal responsibility for our children’s education. To build a network. To increase the number of Black men in classrooms. To remind ourselves that we weren’t alone in this work.
That first gathering felt like church. Like a family reunion. Like the kind of space where you could finally exhale and just be with people who understood the weight you carried every single day.
Ten years later, BMEC has grown to 2,000 people. Participants come from other countries. Two full days. A packed agenda featuring powerhouses in education at every level. Workshops, panels, keynotes, and breakout sessions, all centered on the work of Black educators nurturing Black children.
It remains the one education event I genuinely look forward to each year. Not because of the credentials on the name tags or the networking opportunities, but because it’s a healthy, collaborative, community space where we can show up as our whole selves without translation or code-switching. Where we can be good with each other, not just good for the mission.
This year, I’m honored to contribute in two ways.
First, I’m leading a lab called “From the Classroom to the Culture: Building Your Public Voice as a Black Educator.” It’s designed for about 50 educators who understand that their stories, insights, and experiences deserve a platform beyond their classroom walls.
Teachers are among the most trusted voices in education, yet those who are Black and male are consistently left out of the conversation. This session is about changing that and helping educators see themselves as “public teachers” who can influence the education debate nationally and create a positive, powerful culture of teaching and learning. We’ll work on defining core messages, building digital platforms, and stepping into public discourse with confidence and conviction.
Second, I’m facilitating a fireside chat called “Sports, Entertainment, & Education: Where Culture Meets Learning” with three incredible minds: Bomani Jones (sports journalist and cultural critic), Lupe Fiasco (Grammy-winning rapper now teaching at Johns Hopkins, MIT, and Yale), and Etan Thomas (former NBA player, author, and youth advocate).
We’ll chop it up about how sports and hip-hop function as effective educational spaces, and what formal education can learn from the pedagogical principles embedded in these cultural institutions. It’s going to be honest, maybe a little raw, challenging, and hopefully transformative for the educators in the room.
This year’s conference is particularly urgent.
We’re gathering at a moment when everything designed to support Black students and educators is under attack.
Diversity initiatives are being defunded and criminalized. Programs that increased Black student achievement—especially for Black boys—are shutting down. Support for recruiting and retaining Black educators is evaporating because the current political climate makes it unsafe for former allies to continue their support.
Black educators are losing their jobs for teaching Black history. For centering Black joy. For refusing to erase our children’s identities in the name of someone else’s comfort.
The infrastructure we spent decades building is being dismantled in real time.
Which means we are truly on our own. We are all we have.
And that’s precisely why spaces like BMEC matter more than ever.
When the systems abandon us, we gather. When the policies fail us, we build our own networks. When they try to silence us, we amplify each other’s voices. When they attempt to isolate us, we create family.
BMEC isn’t just a conference. It’s an act of loving resistance to hateful aggression. It’s a declaration that we will continue to show up for our children, for each other, and for the vision of education we know is possible—regardless of what the political climate allows or the funding streams support.
It’s where we plot our own liberation, on our own terms, with no need for permission or license.
So I’m heading to Philadelphia with gratitude for the 100 who started this, respect for the 2,000 who’ll gather this year, and determination to do my part in ensuring we keep building. Keep teaching. Keep elevating Black educators and the children they serve.
If you’re attending BMEC, I hope to see you there. If you’re a Black educator who’s never been, consider this your invitation for next year.
We need you. And you need us.
Let’s gather.
This post was originally published on Verbatim.