If tonight was this good … Only imagine how great tomorrow is going to be …
BlaqOUT Conference!!
BlaqOUT Conference!!
FEATURED KEYNOTE SPEAKER
"Gabriel Maldonado"
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| Gabriel Maldonado |
Gabriel Maldonado is the CEO and Executive Director ofTruEvolution, Inc. - a youth development, social justice organization dedicated to advocating for marginalized and underserved communities through health & wellness, life skills, leadership development, and civic engagement programs and services. Gabriel began working in leadership development after having served on the founding Board of the Los Angeles Police Department’s Teen Community Police Advisory Board under the direction of now Los Angeles City Councilman Jose Buscaino working to build a bridge between the LAPD and the youth in the City of Los Angeles. Gabriel is a human services consultant for other organizations as a specialist in strategic planning, social justice campaigning, program designing, and strategic outreach. As an LGBT Activist, Gabriel works closely with grassroots LGBT organizations and has been an expert panelist and speaker all over the country from Los Angeles to Washington D.C. He has spoken on the disproportionate impacts of HIV/AIDS, institutional discriminatory practices of homophobia and misogyny in the LGBT community and within other communities of color.
FEATURED SPOKEN WORD ARTIST
"J MASE III"
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| J Mase III |
J Mase III is a Black/Trans/Queer/Rowdy-as-Hell Poet with a capital [P] based in Philly. As a performer and teaching poet J Mase III has rocked venues all down the east coast from colleges and radio stations to group homes and youth centers. An organ donor, J Mase is the author of If I Should Die Under the Knife, Tell My Kidney I Was the Fiercest Poet Around and creator of the annual performance event Cupid Ain’t @#$%!: An Anti-Valentine's Day Poetry Movement. A bit of a public intellectual (not in the snotty way, though) J Mase can also be found contributing to publications such as the Vanderbilt African American Lectionary Online to talk about gay teens in the church and the upcoming anthology Nina Arsenault: Body of Work, Body of Art to share insight about gender and genitalia. Learn more at http://jmaseiii.com
FEATURED PRESENTER
for our event
"Fade-In to BlaqOUT"
Mandy Carter
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| Mandy Carter |
Mandy Carter is a Durham, North Carolina African-American lesbian social justice activist with a 45-year movement history of social, racial and LGBT justice organizing since 1968. Ms. Carter helped co-found two groundbreaking organizations. Southerners On New Ground (SONG)and the National Black Justice Coalition (NBJC).
Most recently, Ms. Carter was National Coordinator of NBJC’s Bayard Rustin 2013 Commemoration Project of the National Black Justice Coalition. A national organizing effort to acknowledge, honor, and celebrate black gay civil rights activist Bayard Rustin. 2013 marked the 50th anniversary year of the historic 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom where Dr. King gave his iconic “I Have A Dream” speech.
Click here for more information about BayardRustin.
Click here for more information about the NationalBlack Justice Coalition (NBJC).
Click here for more information about Southerners On New Ground(SONG).
