A three-day conference dedicated to celebrating African-American visibility in the arts, media and activism is launching in Baton Rouge this weekend.
The Black Out Loud conference was organized by local poet and activist Donney Rose. The event’s title stems from Rose’s 2017 book of the same name, a collection of prose-style poetic interpretations of Black History Month. The event aims to empower African-Americans through social mixers, workshops, panel discussions and a keynote address. Read 225‘s write-up on the conference here.
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The conference’s keynote speaker is Van Lathan, the TMZ employee whose rebuttal to Kanye West’s “[slavery] sounds like a choice” comments earlier this year went viral. Lathan, a Baton Rouge native, is also an essayist and the host of The Red Pill podcast.
Other notable speakers and workshop facilitators include Michael “Quess” Moore (the co-founder of Take ‘Em Down NOLA), Deborah “Deep” Mouton (Houston’s first African-American poet laureate) and a number of additional influencers yet to be announced.
The inaugural Black Out Loud Conference is at the McKinley Alumni Center Aug. 10-12. Online registration recently closed, but if you want to attend, you can purchase tickets 30 minutes before each day’s events kick-off at a 15% up-charge. Visit the conference’s website for more info. The McKinley Alumni Center is at 1520 Thomas H. Delpit Drive.