On Friday, February 3, the student leaders of Future Black Leaders welcomed middle school and high school students in the Hoosier Crossroads Conference and surrounding counties to Butler University for the Future Black Leaders Summit. When Cathy Hartman, senior lecturer in Butler’s College of Education, first connected with Future Black Leaders, she knew it was a worthwhile organization that could make a real impact on lives inside and outside of the classroom.
“It’s a community-based high school organization at Fishers High School where students who identify as Black can come together and collaborate, discuss, share, connect, and have their identity affirmed and honored,” Hartman said. “In the last few years, they've expanded to connect with people beyond their high school and consider how, as black future leaders, they lead in predominantly white spaces.”
A year ago, Hartman learned that Future Black Leaders led a summit each year but ran into the challenge of having to turn people away and limit attendance to 10 people per school due to the expense of running the summit. As a believer in the Future Black Leaders students and mission, Hartman knew Butler University could assist the organization, allowing it to extend invitations to even more participants.
She reached out to Randall Ojeda, director of Efroymson Diversity Center at Butler University, to discuss the possibility of collaborating with Future Black Leaders for a summit. This paved the way for Butler University to play host to the Future Black Leaders Summit in February.
Senior Director of Community and Government Relations Michael Lofton was also involved in this process and believed that hosting the summit was a no-brainer. He said that this summit aligned with the same values that led Butler University to become the first university to accept people of color and women in the state of Indiana.
While Butler University hosted the summit, Hartman and Lofton shared that the student leaders of Future Black Leaders were the ones that made the decisions about the summit’s content and schedule. They reached out to speakers, planned breakout sessions, and coordinated all the other details ahead of the event.
Summit participants chose which breakout sessions they wanted to attend, allowing them to focus on what is important to them.
“The agenda allows students the freedom of being able to pick and choose which path they want to go. They don't have a regimented schedule,” Lofton said. “It’s an opportunity for them to either tap into what may be their strengths or areas they want to grow. This can help them as they mature and have to deal with the real world in a real way.”
Bringing students from various schools together along with speakers and other community leaders allowed students to build a network of people that will help them thrive.
“Grow your network now. If you want to be a game changer in this state, this is where and when you develop those relationships,” Lofton said. “There are not a lot of programs like this. You’re actually going to be interacting with people that have the same skin as you who have the same ambition as you and also have an understanding of the challenges that you go through even though they may go to a school 10 miles away. That is incredibly gratifying to know as a student, and that's what makes this event special.”
While developing a network is a definite benefit of the Future Black Leaders Summit, Hartman hopes that students will feel stronger and more confident in their value than when they came.
“I hope when they left, the participants recognized the importance of their voices in the world,” Hartman said. “It doesn’t matter if you’re five or 13 or 17. We need to hear from you, we need to learn from you, and you should have access to spaces where you can do that and where people want to learn from you. Every time I'm with them, I grow, and so I want them to know that their voices are heard and that we need them at Butler and everywhere.”
To learn more about the Future Black Leaders, visit its Instagram @Futureblackleadersfhs
