9th annual africa summit

ABOUT THE 2025 AFRICA SUMMIT
Mobilizing Our Collective Knowledge to Build Community
“We” – the concept of community – is a central value that we all share, Africans and Americans. While polarization and division threaten to drive us to the bunkers of our homes, we have the power to act together and make the world a better place.
The 9th Annual Africa Agenda Summit will open up practical ways in which we can build and strengthen our communities and connect with others.
In many African cultures, the idea of Ubuntu – I am because we are – has sustained and continues to sustain people. This is because the power is in coming together and acting. In fact, in Colorado we have dozens, maybe even hundreds, of organizations that are acting to sustain people, build a future for our children and provide what everyone needs to thrive both here and across Africa.
When we come together, we make the impossible, possible.
The Summit will bring together people across our community with leaders drawn from over 100 organizations that work with and in Africa to discuss and plan for ways to strengthen our communities here and with our African families and friends abroad. To knit and build our community, Summit table topics will mobilize our collective wisdom to act for improving lives and reducing conflicts, taking advantage of the unique skills and knowledge of the African diaspora and others. About a dozen dinner tables will build on the experience and activities of organizations doing the good work to have intimate conversations to learn about what works.
The Africa Summit is a one-of-a-kind opportunity to construct and build along with African specialists and peers from across Colorado and abroad through dinner conversations with authentic African cuisine and music. Since 2014, Africa Agenda has organized the annual Summit for more than 1000 people to connect, network and take advantage of the robust opportunities in Colorado to engage with and learn from the African community in our state.
WHEN & WHERE
DATE & TIME
Friday, May 2, 2025
5:50 PM MDT TO 8:30 PM MDT
LOCATION
Jewish Community Center
350 S. Dahlia Street, Denveer, CO 80246
KEYNOTE SPEAKER
Reiland Rabaka
Reiland Rabaka is Professor of African, African American, and Caribbean Studies in the Department of Ethnic Studies and the Founder and Director of the Center for African & African American Studies at the University of Colorado Boulder. He is also a Research Fellow in the College of Human Sciences at the University of South Africa (UNISA). Dr. Rabaka has published 19 books and more than one hundred scholarly articles, book chapters, and essays. His books include Africana Critical Theory; Against Epistemic Apartheid: W.E.B. Du Bois and the Disciplinary Decadence of Sociology; Forms of Fanonism: Frantz Fanon’s Critical Theory and the Dialectics of Decolonization; Concepts of Cabralism: Amilcar Cabral and the Africana Tradition of Critical Theory; The Negritude Movement; The Routledge Handbook of Pan-Africanism; and Du Bois: A Critical Introduction. A wing of his work has made significant contributions to African American musicology, and his books in this area include Civil Rights Music: The Soundtracks of the Civil Rights Movement; Black Power Music!: Protest Songs, Message Music, and the Black Power Movement; Black Women’s Liberation Movement Music: Soul Sisters, Black Feminist Funksters, and Afro-Disco Divas; The Funk Movement: Music, Culture, and Politics Hip Hop’s Inheritance Hip Hop’s Amnesia; and The Hip Hop Movement. Professor Rabaka has been the recipient of numerous awards and honors, including funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Science Foundation, the National Museum of African American History & Culture, the National Museum of American History, the Smithsonian Institution, the Association for Recorded Sound Collections (ARSC) Book Award, the Eugene M. Kayden Book Award, the Cheikh Anta Diop Book Award, and the National Council for Black Studies’ Distinguished Career Award. He has conducted archival research and lectured extensively both nationally and internationally, and he has been the recipient of several community service citations, distinguished teaching awards, and research fellowships. His cultural criticism, social commentary, and political analysis has been featured in print, radio, television, and online media venues such as NPR, PBS, BBC, CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS, MTV, BET, VH1, The New York Times, The Associated Press, and The Guardian, among others. He is also a poet and musician.

KEYNOTE SPEAKER
Join us for an evening filled with authentic African food, education, entertainment, and a chance to collaborate on issues facing Africa and its people.
The Program
5:00pm – 5:30pm: Registration
5:30pm: Networking Hour and Live Music
6:00pm: Opening Remarks
6:05pm: Keynote Address by Dr. Reiland Rabaka
6:15pm: Dinner is Served
6:45pm: Table Discussions Commence
7:30pm: Rotation & Dessert
8:05pm: Open Forum (Sharing Thoughts)
8:20pm: Closing Remarks
8:30pm: Close & Networking (Live Music)

Guest Speakers
Our keynote speaker will be the award-winning Dr. Reiland Rabaka from CU Boulder. Rabaka’s accomplishments and love for the community speak for itself. We look forward to welcoming the distinguished professor and leader to the Summit.

Table Discussions

Networking
FOOD & ENTERTAINMENT
Dinner will be a continental Nigerian buffet served by chefs from Yummy Meals by Sudok.

Dinner will be a continental Nigerian buffet served by chefs from Yummy Meals by Sudok.


Music by Chihera — A Zimbabwe family band in Colorado
Chihera is the Muchineripi family band from Zimbabwe, 3 generations of family members now living in Colorado: Parents Tafadzwa Obert and Mandy Dube-Muchineripi, children Chipo Veronica, Farai Chamunorwa, and Chiedza, Obert’s Father Edward Muchineripi, and family friend Mary Ellen Garrett. Chihera plays, arranges, and composes Zimbabwean traditional and contemporary music using mbira, marimbas, percussion, soaring vocals and keyboard. Chihera has performed in Denver, Boulder, Aurora and Ft. Collins in house concerts, schools, community benefits and festivals, on KGNU Radio, and at the 2015 and 2016 Zimbabwean Music Festivals in Monmouth, Oregon. Chihera recently performed at the Telemundo’s Denver 2017 Hispanic Day Auto Show. See samples on Chihera’s youtube channel.
THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS & PARTNERS

INFORMATION ON BECOMNG A SPONSOR
