Free Minds, Free People will have three panels to close out our Saturday program (4:00 pm – 6:00 pm). Participants may choose from the following three panels:

• Challenging and Resisting Colonialism within and Across Communities (in the Forum)
• Maestra, luchando, también está enseñando!: Consequences and Community in the Beautiful Struggle (Rm. D-200)
• Youth Organizing: Lessons from Baltimore and Beyond

Closing Panel: Challenging and Resisting Colonialism within and Across Communities
Colonialism is an ongoing structure that impacts every community of struggle differently. In its essence, it pits the least powerful in our society against each other as a strategy for maintaining property rights and human status for some at the expense of others. This panel will address how resistance to colonialism happens within and sometimes across communities. (in the Forum)

Closing Panel: ¡Maestra, luchando, también está enseñando!: Consequences and Community in the Beautiful Struggle
Schooling under the colonial context leaves many educators who teach for social justice feeling isolated and marginalized in their school communities.  Across the country, justice-oriented teachers are under attack and communities are responding through organizing and resistance. This plenary will feature a dialogue between educators whose communities are fighting back as a form of healing and transformation in the fight for an education that is critical, relevant, and humanizing. (Rm. D-200)

Closing Panel: Youth Organizing: Lessons from Baltimore and Beyond
When young people take their demands to the streets—through demonstrations, protests, civil disobedience, even property damage—their message can be heard by those at the highest levels of power. Young people from organizations including the Baltimore Algebra Project, seasoned education justice organizers and who participated in recent police brutality protests, talk about the ways in which young people can force social, political and economic change.