Reflections from BMEC 2025: Building, Remembering, Imagining
By Theo Hollingsworth, Kingmakers of Oakland
This month, I had the honor of attending the 8th annual Black Male Educators Convening (BMEC) in Philadelphia, a national gathering hosted by the Center for Black Educator Development. The conference brings together educators, organizers, researchers, and advocates from across the country who are all committed to reimagining education through the lens of Black liberation.
I attended the convening alongside a powerhouse team from Kingmakers of Oakland: our Chief Program Officer, Bro. Matin Abdel-Qawi; our Director of Research and Impact, Bro. Aman Falal; two early childhood Jegna Ambassadors, Bro. Jordon Chatmon and Bro. James Moore; and Dr. K.O. Wilson, our Director of Black Teacher Recruitment, Retention, and Training. As someone who didn’t come through a traditional teaching pipeline - I lead media and storytelling at KOO and taught animation at KOOLabs - I wasn’t sure what to expect. But from the moment I walked in, I knew I was exactly where I needed to be.
The three-day experience was equal parts history lesson, healing circle, and vision-building session.
Day 1 opened with ancestral grounding. Dr. Greg Carr (Howard University) led a powerful libation ceremony, calling the names of educators past, while Dr. Leslie Fenwick, author of Jim Crow’s Pink Slip, a book which breaks down the real cost of Brown v. Board: the purging of over 100,000 Black educators in the decades that followed. She reminded us that Black folks didn’t leave education…education left us.
Day 2 was a deep dive into innovation and ideology. A panel titled Black Male Educators at the Frontier of AI explored the possibilities and tensions of bringing artificial intelligence into the classroom. Panelists shared how AI is being used to customize learning, support student agency, and transform traditional teaching roles. But they also raised key questions about access, equity, and what gets lost when tech leads without purpose. There was no hype, just honest dialogue about how Black educators can shape the future of learning without losing the soul of what we know works: care, connection, and culturally grounded teaching.
Later that day, a panel titled, The Black Power Movement & Education for Liberation centered on Black Power and the fight for education as liberation. Dr. Howard Fuller, Dr. Charles Payne, Mama Yasmin Majid, and Baba Hamid Khalid dropped generational wisdom. The message was clear: if traditional institutions won’t free us, we have to build our own. From Freedom Schools to guerrilla pedagogy, they called for courage, clarity, and collective ownership of Black education.
Day 3 closed with legacy and truth. From the powerful spoken word of Amir Sulaiman to the sharp insights of the Sports, Entertainment, and Education panel , featuring Etan Thomas, Lupe Fiasco, and Bomani Jones, the message rang clear: our children deserve educators who uplift, not undermine. Schools may not have been built for us, but we’ve always built for each other.
BMEC was more than a conference. It was a call to action. A reminder that if we want schools to serve Black students, Black families, and Black futures, then we have to build them ourselves. And we are.