http://Blackliteracymatters.org/

Black Literacy Matters Conference, Omaha, NE (2026)

09/05/2026

The Black Literacy Revival-THIS IS THE WAY!!

Thursday, March 18, 2027
4th Annual Black Literacy Matters® Conference
University of Nebraska at Omaha

**ADMISSION IS FREE | A GOODWILL OFFERING WILL BE RECEIVED**

“Stand at the crossroads and look; ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is, and walk in it.” — Jeremiah 6:16

“This is the way; walk in it.” — Isaiah 30:21

There was a way.

Black communities have long understood that reading is more than an academic skill. Literacy is connected to **dignity, knowledge, faith, agency, opportunity, and the flourishing of a people.** Across generations, Black churches and faith communities served not only as places of worship, but also as places of teaching, learning, organizing, institution-building, and passing knowledge from one generation to the next.

As part of the **4th Annual Black Literacy Matters® Conference**, *THE BLUEPRINT: THIS IS THE WAY — Spiritual Night* brings the spiritual foundation of this year's theme to life through **worship, Scripture, reflection, intercession, prayer, and voices across generations.**

At the heart of the evening is a powerful question:

**What if part of the way forward can be found by remembering the paths that helped bring us forward before?**

Scripture gives us a compelling blueprint.

Jeremiah tells us to **ask for the ancient paths and find the good way.** Isaiah declares, **“This is the way; walk in it.”** In Acts 8, Philip encounters the Ethiopian official reading Scripture and asks a question that still resonates with the work of literacy today: **“Do you understand what you are reading?”** And in Nehemiah 8, the Word is not simply read aloud. The people are taught so they can understand what is being read.

**Reading. Teaching. Understanding. Faith. Community. Dignity. Flourishing.**

This special evening will honor the historic role of the Black Church and faith communities in building literacy while calling us to consider the role they can play again. We will look to the ancient paths not for nostalgia, but for **instruction**, recovering enduring principles of teaching, community responsibility, intergenerational knowledge, faith, and collective care that can inform the work before us now.

And because a blueprint must be passed forward, the evening will intentionally bring together established spiritual leaders and the **Next Generation Voice**, creating space for the generation inheriting this work to see themselves within it.

We are not being called merely to remember what was.

**We are being called to recover what worked, rebuild what is needed, and walk together toward what can be.**

Join us as **faith, literacy, and legacy converge to reclaim the ancient paths, rediscover the blueprint, and illuminate the way toward literacy, dignity, and flourishing.**

# # # **Our Apostolic Leader for the evening will be announced soon!**

**You will not want to miss this powerful convergence of faith, literacy, legacy, and generations at the Black Literacy Matters® Conference!**

**Admission to Spiritual Night is FREE and open to the community. A goodwill offering will be received during the evening.**

**THE BLACK LITERACY REVIVAL: THIS IS THE WAY.**

*Reclaiming the Methods That Built Black Literacy—And Rebuilding Them Again.*

🎓 **Register for the 4th Annual Black Literacy Matters® Conference, March 17–20, 2027:**

https://www.zeffy.com/en-US/ticketing/black-literacy-matters-conference-2027-the-blueprint-this-is-the-way

09/04/2026

📣 THE CALL FOR PROPOSALS IS OFFICIALLY CLOSED!

And all we can say is… WOW.

More than 150 credible, compelling and impressive proposals were submitted for the 4th Annual Black Literacy Matters Conference—from presenters across the United States and around the globe.

We are humbled. We are excited. And one thing has become increasingly clear:

BLACK LITERACY MATTERS. BLACK LEARNERS MATTER.

Every child deserves access to the instruction, opportunity, knowledge and support necessary to become a skilled reader.

A child's inability to read proficiently should never be accepted as inevitable—not because of race, disability, ZIP code, language, income or circumstance.

It simply should not be. And we are committed to helping build what must come next.

Now the proposals are in, and REGISTRATION IS OFFICIALLY OPEN! 🎉

🎓 4th Annual Black Literacy Matters Conference

THE BLUEPRINT: THIS IS THE WAY

Reclaiming the Methods That Built Black Literacy—And Rebuilding Them Again

📅 March 17–20, 2027

📍 University of Nebraska at Omaha | Omaha, Nebraska

🔥 EARLY BIRD REGISTRATION ENDS NOVEMBER 30!

We are preparing for our largest Black Literacy Matters Conference to date—and this is only year FOUR.

Come expecting more than another conference.

Come expecting THE BLUEPRINT.

We are going back to examine the instructional, familial, communal, cultural, spiritual and institutional forces that helped Black Americans pursue literacy with extraordinary determination following emancipation—and asking what those lessons, alongside what we know from modern reading science, can teach us about rebuilding literacy today.

And yes—THE BLUEPRINT: THIS IS THE WAY Spiritual Night is coming.

We are believing for a Black literacy revival that restores urgency, responsibility, hope, knowledge and collective commitment around the ability of our children to read.

And we're doing it from OMAHA, NEBRASKA!

Yes, the Midwest. And yes, Black people live in Omaha! 😂

Omaha is the birthplace of Malcolm X, home to his historic birthsite, and the city proudly represented by boxing great Terence “Bud” Crawford—a four-division world champion and the first male boxer of the four-belt era to become undisputed champion in two divisions. Omaha is also connected to Gabrielle Union and legendary investor Warren Buffett, and home to the world-renowned Omaha's Henry Doorly Zoo and Aquarium.

Come experience Omaha. Come experience Black Literacy Matters. Come help us build.

👥 Grab your colleagues.

🏫 Bring your school and district teams—group discounts are available.

👨‍👩‍👧 Bring your families—Parent Day is coming.

Everyone is welcome. Everyone is needed.

More than 150 proposals have already told us something:

People are ready.

Now we need YOU IN THE ROOM.

🎟️ REGISTER NOW — EARLY BIRD ENDS NOVEMBER 30:

https://www.zeffy.com/en-US/ticketing/black-literacy-matters-conference-2027-the-blueprint-this-is-the-way

📣 SHARE THIS POST FAR AND WIDE.

09/02/2026

I am excited to join the HILL for Literacy Speaker Series on September 24 to present “The Value of Literacy: Building the Conditions for Black Learners to Flourish.”

As a literacy advocate, theorist, and founder of Black Literacy Matters®, I am looking forward to a conversation that gets to the heart of my work. Black learners have dignity, capacity, and possibility. Our responsibility is to build the conditions that allow those qualities to flourish through literacy.

Drawing on my work, “Literacy as Exodus,” we will explore literacy as more than an academic skill. It is a pathway to agency, opportunity, and the ability to shape one’s own future. We will consider what the Reconstruction era teaches us about educational will and how families, educators, churches, and communities can pair that commitment with effective reading instruction today.

This is not a conversation about what Black learners lack. It is about what they can accomplish and what we must put in place to make that possible.

Join me September 24 at 3:30 p.m. EDT / 2:30 p.m. CDT.

Register here: [HILL for Literacy Webinars](https://hillforliteracy.org/webinars)

Please share this post and invite someone who is ready to help build the conditions for Black learners to flourish!

09/02/2026

# THE BLUEPRINT: THIS IS THE WAY — Spiritual Night

**Thursday, March 18, 2027**
**4th Annual Black Literacy Matters® Conference**
**University of Nebraska at Omaha**

**ADMISSION IS FREE | A GOODWILL OFFERING WILL BE RECEIVED**

**“Stand at the crossroads and look; ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is, and walk in it.” — Jeremiah 6:16**

**“This is the way; walk in it.” — Isaiah 30:21**

There was a way.

Black communities have long understood that reading is more than an academic skill. Literacy is connected to **dignity, knowledge, faith, agency, opportunity, and the flourishing of a people.** Across generations, Black churches and faith communities served not only as places of worship, but also as places of teaching, learning, organizing, institution-building, and passing knowledge from one generation to the next.

As part of the **4th Annual Black Literacy Matters® Conference**, *THE BLUEPRINT: THIS IS THE WAY — Spiritual Night* brings the spiritual foundation of this year's theme to life through **worship, Scripture, reflection, intercession, prayer, and voices across generations.**

At the heart of the evening is a powerful question:

**What if part of the way forward can be found by remembering the paths that helped bring us forward before?**

Scripture gives us a compelling blueprint.

Jeremiah tells us to **ask for the ancient paths and find the good way.** Isaiah declares, **“This is the way; walk in it.”** In Acts 8, Philip encounters the Ethiopian official reading Scripture and asks a question that still resonates with the work of literacy today: **“Do you understand what you are reading?”** And in Nehemiah 8, the Word is not simply read aloud. The people are taught so they can understand what is being read.

**Reading. Teaching. Understanding. Faith. Community. Dignity. Flourishing.**

This special evening will honor the historic role of the Black Church and faith communities in building literacy while calling us to consider the role they can play again. We will look to the ancient paths not for nostalgia, but for **instruction**, recovering enduring principles of teaching, community responsibility, intergenerational knowledge, faith, and collective care that can inform the work before us now.

And because a blueprint must be passed forward, the evening will intentionally bring together established spiritual leaders and the **Next Generation Voice**, creating space for the generation inheriting this work to see themselves within it.

We are not being called merely to remember what was.

**We are being called to recover what worked, rebuild what is needed, and walk together toward what can be.**

Join us as **faith, literacy, and legacy converge to reclaim the ancient paths, rediscover the blueprint, and illuminate the way toward literacy, dignity, and flourishing.**

# # # **Our Apostolic Leader for the evening will be announced soon!**

**You will not want to miss this powerful convergence of faith, literacy, legacy, and generations at the Black Literacy Matters® Conference!**

**Admission to Spiritual Night is FREE and open to the community. A goodwill offering will be received during the evening.**

**THE BLUEPRINT: THIS IS THE WAY.**

*Reclaiming the Methods That Built Black Literacy—And Rebuilding Them Again.*

🎓 **Register for the 4th Annual Black Literacy Matters® Conference, March 17–20, 2027:**

https://www.zeffy.com/en-US/ticketing/black-literacy-matters-conference-2027-the-blueprint-this-is-the-way

08/31/2026

🚨 6 HOURS & 15 MINUTES LEFT! Proposals close at MIDNIGHT TONIGHT!

If you’ve thought about it, wanted to submit, or have been indecisive, TODAY is your day.

The 4th Annual Black Literacy Matters® Conference Call for Proposals closes TODAY, August 31, at midnight Central Time. NO EXTENSIONS.

If there is something in you—research, evidence, practice, experience, innovation, or a proven approach—that can help move the Black literacy movement forward, we want to hear from you.

This will be our largest and most consequential Black Literacy Matters Conference to date, and it is calling your name.

THE BLUEPRINT: THIS IS THE WAY

Reclaiming the Methods That Built Black Literacy—And Rebuilding Them Again

📅 March 17–20, 2027

📍 Omaha, Nebraska

🔗 SUBMIT YOUR PROPOSAL TODAY:

https://app.oxfordabstracts.com/stages/82405/submitter

Share with your friends. Share with your people. Share with your colleagues. Share with someone you know has something important and significant to contribute.

We want to hear from you.

SHARE. SHARE. SHARE.

⏰ Remember: NO EXTENSIONS. TODAY IS IT.

08/31/2026

🚨 TODAY IS THE DAY! CALL FOR PROPOSALS CLOSE TONIGHT! 🚨

If you’ve thought about it, wanted to submit, or have been indecisive, TODAY is your day.

The 4th Annual Black Literacy Matters® Conference Call for Proposals closes TODAY, August 31, at midnight Central Time. NO EXTENSIONS.

TODAY, August 31, at midnight Central Time. NO EXTENSIONS.

If there is something in you—research, evidence, practice, experience, innovation, or a proven approach—that can help move the Black literacy movement forward, we want to hear from you.

This will be our largest and most consequential Black Literacy Matters Conference to date, and it is calling your name.

THE BLUEPRINT: THIS IS THE WAY

Reclaiming the Methods That Built Black Literacy—And Rebuilding Them Again

📅 March 17–20, 2027

📍 Omaha, Nebraska

🔗 SUBMIT YOUR PROPOSAL TODAY:

https://app.oxfordabstracts.com/stages/82405/submitter

Share with your friends. Share with your people. Share with your colleagues. Share with someone you know has something important and significant to contribute.

We want to hear from you.

SHARE. SHARE. SHARE.

⏰ Remember: NO EXTENSIONS. TODAY IS IT.

08/30/2026

📣 CALL FOR PROPOSALS DUE IN 🔥 2 DAYS! 🔥
🚌 DON’T MISS THE BUS!

The Black Literacy Matters® Conference Call for Proposals closes August 31.

If you have something meaningful, practical, or evidence-based to contribute to improving literacy outcomes for Black learners, this is the conference for you.

We intentionally center Black learners because of persistent low literacy outcomes nationwide, but everyone is welcome to submit. Educators, researchers, practitioners, advocates, community leaders, and others from all backgrounds are encouraged to apply if you have something significant and evidence-based to contribute.

THE BLUEPRINT: THIS IS THE WAY

Reclaiming the Methods That Built Black Literacy—And Rebuilding Them Again

📅 March 17–20, 2027 | Omaha, Nebraska

⏳ ONLY 2 DAYS LEFT. DON’T DELAY!

🔗 Submit your proposal:

https://app.oxfordabstracts.com/stages/82405/submitter

08/26/2026

📣 CALL FOR PROPOSALS DUE IN 🔥 6 DAYS! 🔥

🚌 DON’T MISS THE BUS!

The Black Literacy Matters® Conference Call for Proposals closes August 31.

If you have something meaningful, practical, or evidence-based to contribute to improving literacy outcomes for Black learners, this is the conference for you.

We intentionally center Black learners because of persistent low literacy outcomes nationwide, but everyone is welcome to submit. Educators, researchers, practitioners, advocates, community leaders, and others from all backgrounds are encouraged to apply if you have something significant and evidence-based to contribute.

THE BLUEPRINT: THIS IS THE WAY
Reclaiming the Methods That Built Black Literacy—And Rebuilding Them Again

📅 March 17–20, 2027 | Omaha, Nebraska

⏳ ONLY 6 DAYS LEFT. DON’T DELAY!

🔗 Submit your proposal:
https://app.oxfordabstracts.com/stages/82405/submitter

08/25/2026

🚨 OFFICIAL ANNOUNCEMENT 🚨

It is with deep gratitude and clear conviction that I announce the publication of my scholarly work in The Midwest Quarterly: A Journal of Contemporary Thought, published by Pittsburg State University.

This work appears in the Spring 2026 Edition (Volume 67, No. 3), a special issue titled:

“Dyslexia and Reading Failure”

Guest Editor: David P. Hurford

I would like to sincerely thank Dr. Hurford for the opportunity to contribute my analytical work to this important issue.

My articles:

“Literacy as Exodus: The Reconstruction Literacy Paradox and the Collapse of Educational Will”

“Why Black Literacy Still Matters: History, Evidence, and the Case for Targeted Literacy Action”

are now officially part of the academic record.

What began as advocacy, what was carried through lived experience, and what has been built through years of work in literacy and dyslexia advocacy has now been formalized into theory.This work represents my contribution as a literacy theorist and framework builder.

While elements of this history have been studied, this work formally defines the Reconstruction Literacy Paradox as an analytical framework that reframes the conversation and centers institutional accountability.

It raises a question that cannot be ignored:

How did a population emerging from enslavement with almost no access to formal education achieve rapid literacy gains, while modern systems with far greater resources continue to produce failure?

That question is now on record.

This publication represents a strategic shift. It establishes an intellectual and academic foundation for the next phase of this work.

Through Black Literacy Matters®, this work extends beyond conferences and programs into the development of policy, practice, and accountability frameworks that will shape how literacy is understood and addressed at a national and global level.

From this point forward, the work moves with clarity, structure, and documented authority.The Black Literacy Matters Conference 2027-The Blueprint: Reclaiming the Methods that Built Black Literacy will continue to rebuild what works, that does not have a baseline of deficit thinking but one of dignity and empowerment.

If you would like to order a copy of this issue ($10) of The Midwest Quarterly, you can do so here:

https://www.pittstate.edu/info/midwestq/index.html

Clarice L. Jackson

Black Literacy Matters Conference

09/05/2026

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