The 2025 Black Artistic Freedom (BlackAF) Conference Elevated the Intersections of Education and Activism Through the Arts

Content

On February 21 and 22, 2025 the Black Healing Joy and Justice Collective along with the Center of Racial Justice and Youth Engaged Research at UMass Amherst’s College of Education held its second annual Black Artistic Freedom Conference: Hip Hop Praxis from the Classes to the World. The two-day event brought together artists, scholars, and thought leaders for a poetry slam on Friday evening followed by a daylong symposium and closing dinner on Saturday. 

The poetry slam was in partnership with the UMass Amherst W.E.B. DuBois Center and hosted by poet and performer Roscoe Burnems. Students and guest poets competed to win cash prizes showcasing spoken word poetry in honor of Black History Month and celebrating DuBois’ life, legacy, and birthday, on February 23, 1868. After an incredible lineup of performances, Tru Kwene took home first place followed by Sumbodies Mama and Rashad Wright in second and third. 

Saturday’s day-long symposium featured workshops, panel discussions, research presentations, performances, and a keynote address by scholar and author, Lauren Leigh Kelly. In her address, Kelly described hip-hop as a desired path, formed “on the identities and the cultures and the literacies of young people saying ‘no there’s a better way to do this and we have our own way of doing this and this is going to lead us somewhere.’” Walking the audience through her personal experience with music, hip-hop, and literacies she described how they can prompt how communities engage in, understand, and approach activism. Kelly concluded her speech by saying, “We are powerful, and we need to know that, and I think we do know that. The question is: What are we doing with that power?”

The event concluded with a closing dinner hosted by Burnems and included additional performances by the UMass Step Team and others.