Agenda

Yoga & Somatic Activity

Begin the day with an accessible movement and somatic practice designed to help participants arrive in their bodies, connect with the group, and ground in the conference’s themes of belonging and connection.

Presented by Under the North Star Yoga Studio, a yoga and care cooperative based in Louisville

Location: Room L-20

Introduction to O&B26

We’ll open O&B26 by arriving together in Louisville, grounding in place, naming the questions we’re carrying, and setting a shared intention for two days built around participation, relationship, and practice.

Speaker: emcee Sarah Crowell

Location: Mainstage

Musical Welcome

Louisville Folk School and the Good River String band will offer a musical welcome rooted in the sounds and traditions of the region, opening the conference through culture, place, and collective presence.

Performers: Louisville Folk School and Good River String Band

Location: Mainstage

Belonging is a Story We Write Together

Understanding the essential role of story is necessary to co-writing another story of the world we want to create. Stories that insist on our shared humanity offer an antidote to the pernicious strategies from actors who thrive on fracturing and isolation to drive antidemocratic agendas. Read more about this session here.

Speakers: Silas House, Crystal Wilkinson, Annette Saunooke Clapsaddle, and Jess Mullins Fullen

Location: Mainstage

Coffee & Tea Break

Join us in the concourse for coffee, tea, and a moment to reset.

Location: Concourse

Belonging in a Time of Crisis and Opportunity

Louisville leader Sadiqa Reynolds welcomes O&B26 to the city before joining Othering & Belonging Institute Director john a. powell for a fireside chat to discuss what belonging asks of us in a time of democratic strain, deep inequality, and coordinated othering. The session will explore how bridging can help us live into the connections that already bind us and how belonging can become a framework for responding to crisis with agency, imagination, and shared responsibility.

Speakers: john a. powell and Sadiqa Reynolds

Location: Mainstage

Lunch (provided) & The Commons Activities

Lunch is included in your ticket! Take time to eat, connect, and then feel free to explore a range of activities throughout The Commons.

Breakout Sessions

Find your path through O&B26 by selecting one of these concurrent breakout sessions located in the Lower-Level Rooms:

1. Authoritarianism and Data: Controlling, Suppressing and Weaponizing a Public Resource with Siddhant Issar, Alisia McClain, Meeta Anand, and Kate Knowles
2. Building Belonging at Scale: A Bridging Partnership Model with Cynthia Knapek and Takeo Kuwabara
3. Building Common Ground through Storytelling with the KY Rural-Urban Exchange with Savannah Barrett, Contea Allan, John Bowman, Christa Iwu, and Richard Young
4. (En)Gendering Authoritarianism: Understanding and Countering How Gender is Weaponized for Authoritarian Ends with Míriam Juan-Torres González and Laura Livingston
5. Meeting the Moment with Real Solutions and Local Leadership with D’Ana Pennington, Eli Moore, Delishia Porterfield, and Michele Hirsch
6. Regional Stories, Shared Futures: Reimagining Identity to Strengthen Belonging and Democracy with Scott Hutcheson, Nichole Argo, and Roxanne Franklin Lorio
7. UBLONG, A Radical Rewriting for Unconditional Belonging: Disrupting Narratives on How We Belong with Miguel Hernandez, Ivon Peña, Olivia Araiza, and aian mendoza
8. What We Carry Forward: York, Sankofa, and the Bigger We with Hasan Davis and Malcolm Davis
9. Who Are They, Really? Inside America's Largest Social Movement with Michael Premo and Rachel Falcone
10. Youth as Architects of Belonging with Rheanna Ganapathy, Daniela DiGiacomo, Woo Williams-Zou, Maggie Stone, and Ashrita Ambhore

Coffee & Tea Break

Coffee, tea, and a moment to reset before the final mainstage.

Making Meaning Together: A Closing in Movement, Story, and Collective Voice

The Belonging Resident Company, a somatic movement arts and Playback Theatre ensemble seeded by the Othering & Belonging Institute, invites us to close the first day of O&B26 not by taking in more information, but by making meaning of what we have experienced together.

Through movement, reflection, rhythm, and Playback Theatre, we’ll create space to notice what the day has stirred in us—what we are learning, questioning, imagining, and carrying forward. Participants will be invited to reflect on moments from the day and share stories that the ensemble will bring to life through improvisational movement, music, and theater, weaving our individual experiences into a larger collective story.

Together, we’ll move what we’ve learned beyond ideas alone, allowing it to live in our bodies, our relationships, and our imaginations. We’ll close in collective voice, carrying the connections, questions, and possibilities of Day One with us into the next day of gathering.

Performers: Belonging Resident Company and Playback Theatre ensemble

Location: Mainstage

Ball of the Future: an O&B Party at the Muhammad Ali Center

An evening of music, movement, food, and connection at the Muhammad Ali Center. The Ball from the Future invites us to celebrate the relationships, creativity, and joy that help make a bigger “we” possible. The ball will include an exhibit dedicated to “bell of the ball” honoring bell hooks.

Location: The Muhammad Ali Center at 144 N 6th Street in Louisville, KY

Morning Run

Kick off day two with a morning 5k run along the Ohio River.

Led by Jose Richard Aviles and Kate Knowles

Location: Meet at KICC entrance on S. 4th Street and W. Jefferson Street

Yoga & Somatic Activity

Begin the day with an accessible movement and somatic practice designed to help participants arrive in their bodies, connect with the group, and ground in the conference’s themes of belonging and connection.

Presented by Under the North Star Yoga Studio, a yoga and care cooperative based in Louisville

Location: Room L-20

Opening Performance

Hui Kaululehua, a group dedicated to preserving and perpetuating Hawaiian culture, will welcome us to the day with performance.

Performers: Hui Kaululehua

Location: Mainstage

Welcome to Day Two

We return for Day Two with a shift from grounding and possibility toward action, strategy, and commitment.

Speaker: emcee Sarah Crowell

Location: Mainstage

Faith, Gender, and Democracy

Faith institutions and communities have long been sites of both belonging and othering. This conversation examines how faith, gender, and democracy are colliding in the current political moment: how some faith actors are building pluralism, gender equality, and a wider “we,” while others mobilize gender and “tradition” in service of exclusion and authoritarian power. Panelists will explore where bridging is possible without ideological agreement, which shared values can sustain democratic life, and how traditions of care, mutuality, and love of neighbor can be activated toward belonging.

Speakers: Reverend Dr. Liz Theoharis, Imam Makram Nu’man El-Amin, Gionathan Lo Mascolo, and Míriam Juan-Torres González

Location: Mainstage

Coffee & Tea Break

Join us for coffee, tea, and a moment to reset before breakout sessions.

Location: Concourse

Breakout Sessions

Find your path through O&B26 by selecting one of these concurrent breakout sessions located in the Lower-Level Rooms:

1. Beyond Anecdote: Empathy as Data for Bridging and Targeted Universalism with Leslie Tergas and Amber Weir
2. Building a political agenda for belonging: Can we create convergence amidst divergence? with Eli Moore, Alvaro Sanchez, Emilia González Avalos, and Nicole Montojo
3. Film Showing and Q&A: “The Dao of Thao” with W. Kamau Bell and Kelly Rafferty
4. “The Hand You’re Dealt” with Erika Washington and Brenda Zamora
5. Housewarming: From Story to Strategy — Co-Creating Policy for a Climate-Changed Future with Asma Mahdi, Saraí Jiménez, and ashley sparks
6. Implementing Cultural Strategies for Solidarity and Multiracial Democracy with Sughey Ramírez, Nikko Viquiera, Temitope Olujobi, and Nick Szuberla
7. Lessons and Strategies for Co-governance and Belonging with Erin Skene-Pratt, Lauren Burdette, Rachel Pate, Kristian Blackmon, and Jose Richard Aviles
8. Rising Narratives for Radical Futures: How to Talk Across Difference for a Multiracial Democracy with Jordan N. DeLoach, Yewande O. Addie, and Aja Holston-Barber
9. When I Dip, You Dip, We Dip: The Power of Culture & Convening with Jessica George, Ora Wise, Liana Shewey, Jyoti Jani, Jessie Nguyễn, Savannah Barrett, Velvet Welch

Lunch on Your Own: Explore and Support Louisville

Power Hour: Create & Commit

Activate belonging through the power of creativity and agency! Our Power Hour will feature a set of concurrent spaces designed for one purpose: find a way to plug in and take tangible action to CREATE and COMMIT to something during O&B26. Spaces will be designed for taking actions toward building and committing to multiracial truly inclusive democracy—whether through cultural strategy activities, make and create, civic engagement, somatic sessions or other tactile and engaging ways that showcase the essential power of creating in building belonging, which we all can tap into.

1. Between the Rooms: Who Gets to Belong? with Belle Townsend
2. Building a Bigger We: A Bridging Differences Practice Lab with Juliana Tafur
3. Collective Mix with DJ Ayomi
4. Community, Crafts, and Conversation with the Future Ancestors with Future Ancestors
5. The Freedom Feeling: A Zine-Making Station with Vashti Proctor
6. Healing From Harm Through Blackout Poetry with Heather Cronk
7. Healing Justice: Collective Art and Community Care with Marcos Morales and teresa lajara of Aflorar Herb Collective
8. Liberated Letters, Voices & Voters with Immanual Tesfai
9. Literary Lounge with Dawnshaeé Reid
10. Rooted in Belonging: Floral Arts, Place, and Identity with Cassandra Webb
11. Screenprinting with Steam Exchange
12. Yoga, Meditation, and Sound Healing with Shavaun Evans

Coffee & Refreshment Break

A short refreshment break before the conference’s final mainstage.

Musical Procession and Performance

When you hear the drums in the Commons, return to the ballrooms or join Louisville’s River City Drum Corp in a procession to be seated for our closing session. A high-energy performance will bring the conference back together before the final commitments and closing.

Performers: River City Drum Corp

Location: The Commons to the Mainstage

Roll Call of Commitment

Across the room, participants name the commitments they are carrying forward, making visible the actions, relationships, and practices that can continue beyond Louisville.

Speakers: Evan Yoshimoto and Cecilie Surasky

Location: Mainstage

Closing Keynote Session with W. Kamau Bell and Beth Howard

W. Kamau Bell brings his distinctive mix of comedy and cultural analysis to the final mainstage conversation with Beth Howard

Speakers: W. Kamau Bell and Beth Howard

Location: Mainstage

Acknowledgements with Ashley Gallegos
Closing Remarks with john a. powell

A moment of gratitude from the Othering & Belonging Institute for the people and communities who made O&B26 possible, and closing remarks synthesizing our time together.

Speakers: Ashley Gallegos and john a. powell

Location: Mainstage

Songs in The Key of Resistance

Renowned songleaders will lead us in collective, participatory, and liberatory singing to send us forward in community and commitment.

Performers: Patience Rowe, Ciara Taylor, and Trinity Wilson

Location: Mainstage

Book Signings with W. Kamau Bell and Beth Howard

Get your books signed by storytellers W. Kamau Bell and Beth Howard at the close of O&B26

Speakers: W. Kamau Bell and Beth Howard

Location: Mainstage Ballroom