The 2025 Practical Activism Conference

Our 22nd annual conference will be Saturday, March 1st, 2025 from 10am-5pm at the College Nine and John R. Lewis College Multipurpose Room. More information regarding our next conference will be coming soon. Thank you to the Everett Program and Lionel Cantú Queer Resource Center for cosponsoring this year's conference!

To register or sign up for email reminders, please visit bit.ly/2025pac!

Featured Speakers

PAC '25 Keynote Speaker: PARK CANNON

Rep. Park Cannon is a Georgia State Representative, one of two openly queer lawmakers in the Georgia General Assembly and its youngest. She represents House District 58 which encompasses a diverse cross-section of Atlanta.

The Democratic lawmaker recently made national headlines when she was unlawfully arrested and removed from the Georgia Capitol after she knocked on the door to the Republican governor’s office during his signing of SB 202, a restrictive law that limits voting rights in the state. Republicans rushed the bill through both chambers of the legislature a few hours before he signed it into law. It has been harshly criticized nationwide for disenfranchising Black voters, is being challenged in court and is being dubbed Jim Crow 2.0.

Rep. Cannon champions a range of social justice causes and her legislative efforts focus on education, jobs, and health care. Rep. Cannon seeks to stop the erosion of affordability for basic needs which she believes are the foundations of social stability. She also devotes her legislative work to protecting Georgia’s most vulnerable citizens: women and children, the elderly and the LGBTQ+ community. She has worked to address maternal mortality rates and the HIV epidemic in Georgia, housing affordability and extending protections to victims of family violence and sexual assault.

Rep. Cannon attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she earned a Bachelor of Arts in Hispanic Linguistics and a Bachelor of Arts in Linguistics, and minored in Women’s and Gender Studies. During her time at UNC Chapel Hill, Rep. Cannon was named a Camões Award Recipient and inducted into the Order of The Old Well. She also participated in the Harvard Kennedy School of Government’s Executive Education State and Local Government program. She was named by the Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) as a Bohnett LGBTQ Leaders Fellow and studied police accountability.

Rep. Cannon has been honored for her service to numerous organizations including SisterSong, the Georgia Legislative Black Caucus, NOBEL Women, the League of Women Voters, National Black Caucus of State Legislators (NBCSL), and the Atlanta NAACP. She was named a CALS Fellow and Henry Toll Fellow by the Council of State Governments and also participated in the Atlanta Regional Commission’s Leadership Institute.

PAC '25 Closing Speaker: King LOTUS BOY

LOTUS BOY is a transgender and unapologetically disabled, neurodivergent, and chronically ill-ustrious, Chinese-American drag king. As an anti-disciplinary artist, he uses any medium that resonates to explore gender fluidity, accessibility, sustainability, solidarity, joy, and healing from trauma.

King LOTUS BOY is on the Boards of Directors for Oaklash, the Bay Area’s drag festival, and the SPM Disability Justice Fund, a nonprofit that fiscally sponsors disability justice initiatives led by disabled BIPOC. LOTUS BOY co-produces Cabaret Palestina with his creative partner, Mama Ganuush, and is a member of the Heritage Activists & Liberation Artists (HALA) Collective.

In 2023, LOTUS BOY became the first openly disabled and Asian winner of the 27th Annual San Francisco Drag King Contest. Zir work has been featured at SF Institute of Contemporary Art, SF MoMa, Austin International Drag Festival, Chinese Historical Society of America Museum, Oakland Asian Cultural Center, United States of Asian America Festival, Fresh Meat Festival of Transgender and Queer Performance, Drag and Spirituality Summit, Queer Women of Color Film Festival, National Wildlife Federation Conference, Cal Academy of Sciences, and more.

When not onstage, ze facilitates workshops on drag history and gender exploration to middle schools, high schools, and colleges in the Bay Area and beyond. Connect with him on Instagram and TikTok or send him a tip on venmo: @kinglotusboy

Workshop Schedule

Block 1 Workshops (12:00pm - 1:20pm)

• Accountability to Democracy and Equitable Political Participation - This workshop explores the vital role of integrity to the democratic process in our rapidly changing world. Participants will examine how open communication fosters understanding, strengthens community bonds, and protects liberty through active political participation. We will discuss the risks of retrenchment when these rights are underutilized and how bridging gaps in language, education, and identity can empower a more inclusive and functional democracy. By emphasizing the connection between communication and community building, this workshop aims to equip participants with the tools to contribute and participate in an equitable well-functioning democracy.
• Capitalism Kills Creativity - This workshop will expose and analyze some of the many ways that capitalism fuels institutional inequality and stifles creativity, particularly in education. Join us as we discuss concepts such as the school-to-prison pipeline, positionality, capitalism’s enforcement of conformity, and potential remedies for the injustices students experience within the education system. By the end of this workshop, we aim to equip participants with the knowledge and passion needed to dismantle the detriments within the education system and foster an environment where students’ individuality is empowered and embraced.
• Learning from the Past: Japanese Internment Camps and ICE Detention Centers -This workshop will focus on histories of Japanese Internment in the U.S., and tying these histories to modern movements surrounding the abolition of ICE. This workshop will involve a panel of speakers to dialogue with attendees about histories of Japanese Internment and its lasting impacts on communities, as well as contemporary movements to abolish ICE.
• How to be an (Effective) Advocate for Palestine - This workshop start by providing a brief historical context of Palestine and Israeli relations in the region. Then we'll go into the current events and how we connect with and participate in them. We'll conclude with how you can advocate for the Palestinian people via avenues like divestment. We are distributing a zine that includes the BDS list for easy reference on how to boycott, protest, or donate.

Block 2 Workshops (1:35pm - 2:55pm)

• Caste Abolition in Academia - Join us for a discussion on the legacy and present state of caste in academic settings such as our own to examine the different ways it manifests to oppress Dalit and Bahujan students and academics, how this oppression can be exacerbated by dominant caste and non-South Asian academics, and the efforts being made by caste-oppressed scholars, activists, and allies to bring caste equity to the university system.
• Climate Justice and Migration - As the climate crisis intensifies, it affects transnational migrants in a variety of ways. Climate change itself can be a driver of migration as land becomes more difficult to inhabit. And transnational migrants, once established in the US, join other communities of color in being disproportionately affected by environmental toxins and disproportionately vulnerable to climate disasters. This panel will describe the roots of climate migration and the environmental injustices faced by communities of color, as well as opportunities to get involved in organizations working to address these issues.
• Credit as Resistance: Building Financial Wellness for Social Justice - This session will explore how discriminatory banking and lending practices in the U.S. have created barriers to economic advancement for individuals and communities, and how we can leverage systems of credit and other financial tools as a form of resistance and social justice. Participants will gain a deeper understanding of how credit impacts our lives today, and how to use credit building as a stepping stone to financial wellness and empowerment.
• NO NEW HARM: Using Nonviolent Communication to Disrupt Systems of Domination -Recall the first time you asked permission to have a sip of water or to use the restroom. Who were you asking, and what power did they have over you? When we slow down to examine our introduction to the state and its power, it often begins with childhood. Our indoctrination into a system of domination started the very first time we asked permission to perform a necessary bodily function. We learned that our self-knowledge was meaningless without authority. How do we become the authority over our own lives? How do we accept our power without a cosign from the very institutions that destablize us? How do we stop replicating the violence of domination in our daily lives? How do we ensure our movements liberate us from interpersonal and relational violence too? Join me on the path to uncover the legacy of domination in our lives and witness our role in this culture of domination. Together, we will explore a new way to connect, build shared power, and make meaningful interventions for lasting transformation.

Activist Activities

• The Art of Resistance - Learn about the different ways that art has been used as resistance throughout its various forms and throughout history, share art that has inspired your activism, and use that inspiration to work on your own ideas for resistance-focused art.
• Beyond Accessibility - Exploring the intersections of disability justice. We will be exploring ways to make our shared spaces more accessible to all abilities of people and learn more about the experiences of marginalized communities.
• Know Your Rights: How to Navigate Law Enforcement Encounters - Find info on how to navigate law enforcement encounters
• Intro to Harm Reduction: Get Narcan Trained! - This activity will feature a brief introduction to harm reduction, specifically drug use harm reduction. In collaboration with SHOP, there will be an opportunity to be Narcan trained and leave equipped with Narcan!
• Barrios Unidos Interactive Prison Cell - Barrios Unidos Interactive Prison Cell - Come learn about the Prison Industrial System and Abolition through this experiential activity hosted by Barrios Unidos, which features a traveling interactive replica of a prison cell and visiting room.
• Literary Censorship and How to Combat it - Learn tools to combat literary censorship

Conference Schedule