Registration is now open for the YWCA Madison Virtual Racial Justice Summit which will take place Sept. 29-Oct. 1. The summit, one of the YWCA’s signature events, is now in its 19th year.

This year’s theme “Reconstruction. Centering Blackness – A Path to Build Collective Power and Justice for All,” will invite the community to radically build on ancestral decolonizing ways of being, relating, and co-creating in society, as well as to develop new paradigms, the YWCA Madison announced on Tuesday.

“During this time in our country, we have a real opportunity to reconstruct our nation by tearing down the oppressive systems and rebuilding and reimagining something new.  This starts with centering Blackness,” Vanessa McDowell, CEO, YWCA Madison said in a statement. “We all have a part in the reconstruction process.  We are excited to build on the movement of collective power and justice for all.”

Each year, the YWCA Madison hosts a racial justice summit that brings together community stakeholders to work on eliminating barriers that foster racism in the Madison community. The Summit focuses on institutional racism and involves nationally known keynote speakers and researchers, as well as local experts and advocates.

The featured keynote speakers for the 2020 YWCA Madison Virtual Racial Justice Summit will be Alicia Walters, Winona LaDuke, John A. Powell, Charlene Carruthers, and Rev. Angel Kyodo Williams.

In addition to the keynotes, this year’s Summit will also offer online community spaces for Summit participants to deepen their learning, practice, and action within a deliberate race-based affinity-based group and/or a chosen area of work or field of practice.

To register or learn more, click here.