Black History Month is a fitting time to call attention to a unique upcoming conference that the Freedom From Religion Foundation is proudly co-sponsoring.
The Women of Color Beyond Belief Conference, scheduled for Oct. 4-6 at the Marriott Midway Hotel in Chicago, will be the first national secular forum exclusively focused on the perspectives of women of color who are atheists, agnostics, humanists, freethinkers and skeptics. It will highlight the work of women of color within the secular community and provide a multiracial, feminist vision of leadership and activism in secularism. The panels, presentations, workshops and performances will touch on a range of issues, including church-state separation activism, religion in marginalized communities, violence against women, and feminism, anti-racism and racial justice action.
Black Nonbelievers, the Black Skeptics Group and the Women’s Leadership Project are partnering to put together the event.
“The conference aims to create more inclusive opportunities in secular organizing, policy and practice,” say conference organizers Mandisa Thomas, Sikivu Hutchinson and Bria Crutchfield. “Over the past decade, women of color secularists have challenged mainstream secular leadership, pushing for social, racial, and gender justice against the evangelical, conservative right-wing tide. We hope this conference empowers more secular women of color to speak up, understand that there are more of us out here, and become motivated to get involved.”
The Freedom From Religion Foundation, the largest event co-sponsor, is joined by Secular Woman and the American Humanist Association. FFRF is delighted at the role it is playing.
“It gives us special joy to spotlight the concerns of freethinking women of color,” says FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor. “We’re confident that the conference will be a resounding success.”
Scholarship support is available and child care will be provided by Camp Quest. The conference invites everyone to attend, as a prime objective is for women of color to be heard by the rest of the secular community.
Black Nonbelievers is a nonprofit fellowship headquartered in the Atlanta area that is dedicated to providing an informative, caring, festive and friendly community. Black Skeptics Group is a community-based organization that provides social justice resources, educational initiatives and scholarships for nonbelievers, humanists and secularists of color. The Women’s Leadership Project is a black feminist mentoring, civic engagement and advocacy program for girls of color based in South Los Angeles, focusing on sexual harassment and sexual violence prevention education, women of color social history, reproductive justice, LGBTQI youth rights and college readiness.
The Freedom From Religion Foundation is a national educational nonprofit with more than 31,000 members and several chapters around the country. Its purposes are to uphold the constitutional separation between church and state, and to educate the public on matters related to nontheism.
