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Summit Schedule

View the 2025 Racial Equity Summit Schedule below and

stay stuned for updates on the next Summit coming in 2027.

Track 1 Schedule

The following sessions, panels, and lunch session

are unique to Track 1 attendees:

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10:25 - 11:25 AM Sessions & Panel at The Touhill

  • SESSION | The 92%: Black Women and the Exhaustion of Carrying the Weight with Chalana Scales-Ferguson

  • PANEL | I Call Out to You: Faith, Genocide, and Collective Liberation with performance by Katarra Parson and panel moderated by Maleeha Ahmad with panelists Sara Bannoura and Cori Bush

  • SCREENING + SESSION | Listen to the Ancestors: They Deserve to be Heard with Howard Denson

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11:30AM - 12:30PM Lunch at The Touhill Promenade Lobby & Terrace Lobby

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12:45 - 1:45PM Sessions at Millennium Student Center

  • Challenges and Success: The Role of Community Partnership in Addressing Perinatal Mental Health with Nia Plump and Cheron Phillips

  • Healing in Color: Stories from the Margins with Dr. Michelle Echols

  • Listening Circles: Advancing Asian American Mental Health with Hemla Singaravelu and Min Liu Zeng, PhD

  • Culture Cultivates: Community-based Youth Development & Program Design with Terrance Cauley

  • Abolition in Action: Imagining Real Safety in St. Louis with Janis Mensah

  • Debunking Mental Health Myth with Chosen for Change with Michael Brown Sr. and Cal Brown

Track 2 Schedule

The following sessions, panels, and lunch session

are unique to Track 2 attendees:

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10:30 - 12PM Track 2 Sessions at the Millenium Student Center

  • Designing for Change: Using Canva to Advance Racial Equity in Storytelling with Arkayla Tenney-Howard

  • Activating in Community with Nichole Murphy and Madhav Narayan

  • Our Imagination is Infrastructure: Kinloch as a Living Vision with Kayla Moore

  • I Define ME: Educational Equity for Girls of Color with Tracie Berry-McGhee

  • Literary Liberation: Transforming Early Childhood Through Black Joy with Carolyn Loper, April Heermance, and Keyon Watkins

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10:30 - 12PM Track 2 Panel at the Millenium Student Center

  • Black Art Worlds: Addressing Racial Inequity in the Region’s Arts Ecosystem with Jong Bum (JB) Kwon and MK Sadiq

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12 - 12:45PM Lunch at The Touhill Promenade Lobby & Terrace Lobby​

Virtual Track Schedule

The following sessions, panels, and lunch session

are accessible to Virtual Track attendees:

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Friday, August 8, 2025

9 - 10:15 AM Opening Plenary + Keynote

  • Welcome by April Warren-Grice, PhD, Founder and CEO, Liberated Genius

  • Opening Plenary + Keynote by Prentis Hemphill, bestselling author, political organizer, founder and director of The Embodiment Institute 

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10:25 - 11:25AM Session + Panels

  • SESSION | The 92%: Black Women and the Exhaustion of Carrying the Weight with Chalana Scales-Ferguson

  • PANEL | I Call Out to You: Faith, Genocide, and Collective Liberation with performance by Katarra Parson and panel moderated by Maleeha Ahmad with panelists Sara Bannoura and Cori Bush

​

10:30 - 12PM Sessions 

  • Designing for Change: Using Canva to Advance Racial Equity in Storytelling with Arkayla Tenney-Howard

  • ​Literary Liberation: Transforming Early Childhood Through Black Joy with Carolyn Loper, April Heermance, and Keyon Watkins

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10:30 - 12PM Panels 

  • Black Art Worlds: Addressing Racial Inequity in the Region’s Arts Ecosystem with Jong Bum (JB) Kwon and MK Sadiq​

​

12:45 - 1:45PM Sessions 

  • Challenges and Success: The Role of Community Partnership in Addressing Perinatal Mental Health with Nia Plump and Cheron Phillips

  • Healing in Color: Stories from the Margins with Dr. Michelle Echols

  • Abolition in Action: Imagining Real Safety in St. Louis with Janis Mensah

  • Debunking Mental Health Myth with Chosen for Change with Michael Brown Sr. and Cal Brown

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2 - 3:15PM Sessions 

  • Beautiful, Healthy Resilient: Environmental Justice and Ecological Stewardship in Redlined Areas with Dail Chambers

  • The Pulse Check Experience: An Intergenerational Skills Share Circle To Resist Social and Systemic Harm with Barbara Gunn Lartey

  • Breaking Barriers: Cultivating Equity in Alzheimer's Care, Research, and Community Support for Black Americans with  Gabrielle Hannah, Dr. Joy Balls-Berry, Presiding Elder Edmund Lowe

  • Breathe, Balance, and Belonging: Centering Healing and Racial Equity Among Youth with Chelesa Holden and Kawaii "Kay" Brown

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2 - 3:15PM Panels 

  • Honor Black Birth with Riisa Rawlins, Sandra Thornhill, Lora Gulley, Monique Gill, Charity Bean

  • AAPI Activism and Solidarity: How Marginalized

  • Communities Can Build Power and Partnership with Panelists Anna Guzon, Dr. Adriano Udani, PhD, MPA, Stephanie Co, and Moderator Jia Lian Yang

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4 - 5PM Closing 

  • Racial Healing + Justice Fund Chat with Panelists Annissa McCaskill, Constance Harper, Esq.,  Rev.Bethany Johnson-Javois, MSW, and Moderator Faybra Jabulani

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Saturday, August 9, 2025

9 - 10AM Welcome

  • Towards A Just and Equitable Recovery with Panelists Deleshā George, Constance Siu, and Miranda Walker Jones and Moderator Annissa McCaskill

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10:15 - 11:30AM Sessions 

  • Retaining Black Educators: The Role of Leadership in Cultivating Belonging and Success with  Brent Mitchell Ed.S and Dr. Erica Bumpers

  • Building an Entrepreneurship Ecosystem Through a Historical and Equitable Lens with Erica Williams, Mellarie Thomas, and Chris Wilcox

  • Is It Me or the Color of My Skin with Lavoughnda Danner

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10:15 - 11:30AM Panels 

  • The Most Northern State of the South: Building a Statewide Prison Advocacy Movement in Missouri with ML Smith, Clifton Davis, Sheena Rogers, and Mataka Askari

  • Elevating Youth Voices with Danielle Small, Kandace Davis, Lavon McKnight, Gabriel Moore, Chad Ward, D’Maya Spottsville, D’Arrah Scott, and Destiny Small

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12:45 - 1:45PM​ Sessions

  • Decolonizing Queer Advocacy in Black Communities with Maxi Glamour

  • Strengthening Saint Louis Communities: Awareness into Action in Housing, Health, Transportation & Employment with Dr. Brandy A. Clay

  • What to Do When You Can't Talk About DEI at Work with Joy Johnson-Carruthers

  • Standing in Solidarity: Demystifying the Undocumented Latino Immigrant Experience and Allyship in Times of Crisis moderated by Ben Molina with Panelists Jessica Mayo, Ivonne Ogden, Valencia Alvarez Yery Castillo, Judy McGrath

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2 - 3PM​ Closing

  • Healing + Transformation with Dr. Terry Harris and Brittíni Gray-Chiquillo

ASL Interpretation

The following sessions will be offered in American Sign Language.

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Friday, August 8, 2025

9 - 10:15 AM Opening Plenary + Keynote

  • Welcome by April Warren-Grice, PhD, Founder and CEO, Liberated Genius

  • Opening Plenary + Keynote by Prentis Hemphill, bestselling author, political organizer, founder and director of The Embodiment Institute 

​

4 - 5PM Closing 

  • Racial Healing + Justice Fund Chat with Panelists Annissa McCaskill, Constance Harper, Esq.,  Rev.Bethany Johnson-Javois, MSW, and Moderator Faybra Jabulani

  • ​

Saturday, August 9, 2025

10:45AM - 1:45PM Nothing About Us Without Us

Panelists

  • Sonya Smith, Vocational Counselor for the Deaf and Hard of hearing, Missouri Vocational Rehabilitation

  • Christina Meneses, Consultant

Moderator

  • Jermar Perry, Executive Director/Co-Founder, The Village PATH

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“Nothing about us without us” is a motto often used by Disabled activists and Disability rights movements since the nineties. This panel will uplift the centrality of Disability justice within broader liberation movements, the urgency and importance of intersectional understandings of Disability, and the power of racially and culturally competent approaches to accessibility and Disability justice. Panelists will share lessons from Disability rights movements, how to combat attacks on healthcare and Disability benefits, and offer a call to action to prioritize accessibility and community safety within equity and justice movements.

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2 - 3PM​ Closing

  • Healing + Transformation with Dr. Terry Harris and Brittíni Gray-Chiquillo 

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Wellness Spaces

May Room, The Touhill and Quiet Lounge, Room 302, Millennium Student Center

Visit the wellness space to take a breath, stretch, ground yourself, and reflect on the relationship between healing and justice. What does being unflinching mean to you? What calls to action will you respond to in your personal life and in the world around you?

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The wellness space will have ambient music, comfortable seating, and coloring books featuring illustrations of Queer and Trans Black, Indigenous, and People of Color icons by Ori Tala, a Black, Indigenous, Two Spirit creative.

Quiet Room

The Touhill

Get away from the noise and recenter yourself by visiting

the Quiet Room in the Touhill.

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