Raleigh, NC — The Dudley Flood Center for Educational Equity & Opportunity, in partnership with the Public School Forum of North Carolina, the Samuel DuBois Cook Center on Social Equity, and the Center for Child and Family Policy at Duke University’s Sanford School of Public Policy, hosted the 2026 Color of Education Summit on October 2–3, convening nearly 600 in-person and virtual participants from across North Carolina and beyond.
Under the theme, “Justice Rising: Repairing, Restoring, Resisting,” the two-day hybrid summit brought together students, educators, community leaders, researchers, policymakers, and advocates to examine what educational justice requires in this moment and how communities can move from learning and dialogue to collective action.
The 2026 theme built upon the Summit’s longstanding commitment to truth, history, storytelling, community, and action. Participants were challenged not only to name inequities in education, but also to consider what must be repaired, what must be restored, and what communities must continue to resist in order to create an educational system where every child has the opportunity to thrive.
“Color of Education creates a space where we can bring research, lived experience, history, and community wisdom together in ways that deepen both our understanding and our responsibility,” said Dr. Keisha Bentley-Edwards, Color of Education co-chair and Associate Professor at Duke University School of Medicine. “Justice requires us to understand how we arrived at this moment while also recognizing the power we have to shape what comes next. When we listen to communities, learn from our history, and remain committed to one another, we create possibilities for meaningful and lasting change.”
Dr. Deanna Townsend-Smith at the Flood Center challenged participants to see themselves as part of a continuing movement for educational justice.
“Justice does not rise on its own. It rises because people choose to tell the truth, repair what has been broken, restore what communities need to thrive, and resist the forces that would move us backward. The question before us is not simply what we learned during these two days. The question is what we are prepared to do with what we now know.”
Reflections from the Keynotes
The Summit’s keynote speakers brought distinct perspectives from movement building, scholarship, storytelling, policy, and community leadership, creating an intentional arc across the two days from understanding the moment to considering what collective action requires.
Bishop William J. Barber II grounded educational justice within a broader moral movement for equity and opportunity. His keynote challenged participants to understand the fight for public education as inseparable from the larger work of building a just democracy and reminded attendees of the power of people and communities to organize across differences in pursuit of a shared moral vision.
Marley Dias, author, activist, and founder of #1000BlackGirlBooks, brought the perspective of a young leader who turned her own experience into a movement for greater representation in literature and education. Her message reinforced one of the Summit’s central commitments: young people must be recognized not simply as recipients of educational decisions, but as leaders with the ability to identify problems, shape solutions, and create change.
Closing keynote speaker Dr. Tressie McMillan Cottom, acclaimed writer, sociologist, and scholar, brought together questions of education, culture, opportunity, power, and belonging. Her closing conversation challenged participants to examine the systems and narratives that shape opportunity while considering what it means to build institutions and communities capable of delivering on the promise of educational justice.
Together, the keynote speakers reflected the central premise of Justice Rising: meaningful change requires understanding history, listening to voices too often excluded from decision making, confronting inequitable systems, and believing in the collective capacity to build something better.
Honoring the Wisdom & Legacy
The Summit also centered the voice and legacy of Dr. Dudley E. Flood, whose decades of leadership in the desegregation of North Carolina’s public schools continue to inform the work that bears his name. Dr. Flood reminded participants that progress is sustained when people are willing to learn from one another, challenge their own perspectives, and remain committed to the work even when change is difficult.
His presence offered a living connection between the history explored throughout the Summit and the responsibility participants carry forward. The lessons of the past, participants were reminded, are not simply stories to preserve. They are wisdom to apply to the challenges facing public education today.
That commitment to carrying history forward also took tangible form through the introduction of The Boy Who Helped Change Schools: A Story of Justice and Belief — A NC Hero, a new children’s book sharing Dr. Flood’s story with a new generation.
Written for young readers, the book traces Dr. Flood’s journey from his childhood in Winton, North Carolina, through his role in helping communities navigate school desegregation and his lifelong belief in the dignity and potential of every child. The book extends a central idea of Color of Education beyond the Summit: young people deserve access to the histories that help them understand both what came before them and their own capacity to create change.
The introduction of the book also created an intentional bridge between the 2025 Summit theme, “Preserving Our Legacy: The Power in the Stories We Carry,” and the 2026 call to action, “Justice Rising.” Preserving history is not the end of the work. That history must be passed forward, used to inform the present, and placed in the hands of the next generation.
Students Take Their Place as Leaders in the Movement
Across plenaries, breakout sessions, and interactive learning experiences, participants explored some of the most pressing issues facing public education, including educator diversity, student voice and leadership, culturally relevant and sustaining practices, educational opportunity, community engagement, policy, history, and the role of collective action in creating more equitable systems.
A central emphasis of the 2026 Summit was ensuring that young people were not simply subjects of conversations about education, but participants in shaping them.
Through the Rising Voices: Translating Student Voice into Action track and other Summit experiences, students shared their perspectives, challenged assumptions, and demonstrated what becomes possible when young people are recognized as leaders, partners, and decision makers in educational change.
The Summit also continued Color of Education’s commitment to storytelling as a tool for preserving history and shaping the future. Stories of resistance, courage, community, and possibility served as reminders that today’s work is connected to generations of people who have fought to expand educational opportunity.
From Learning to Action
In her closing charge, Dr. Townsend-Smith challenged participants to carry the work beyond the Summit through three commitments:
- Repair. Identify the policies, practices, relationships, and systems that have created or sustained inequity and commit to changing them.
- Restore. Reclaim the histories, voices, relationships, opportunities, and community wisdom necessary to build stronger educational systems.
- Resist. Continue speaking truth, protecting opportunity, and standing together when progress toward educational justice is threatened.
“Color of Education has never been intended to be simply a conference,” said Dr. Townsend-Smith. “It is a place to learn, connect, challenge our thinking, and strengthen our collective capacity to act. Nearly 600 people gathered this year because they understand that educational justice requires more than individual effort. Lasting change happens when people, not organizations or programs, unite around a shared purpose.”
The conclusion of the Summit does not mark the conclusion of the work.
Participants are invited to continue learning, networking, strategizing, and organizing through the Dudley Flood Center’s Mapping the Movement initiative. Mapping the Movement brings together organizations, educators, advocates, students, and community leaders from across North Carolina to identify shared priorities, reduce duplication, strengthen collaboration, and advance collective strategies for educational opportunity.
Through Mapping the Movement and the Flood Center’s broader statewide leadership and learning ecosystem, the conversations begun at Color of Education will continue throughout the year, moving participants from learning to leading to changing systems.
The 2026 Color of Education Summit reinforced a message that has guided the Flood Center’s work: history matters, truth matters, community matters, leadership matters, coalition building matters, and systems can change.
As participants return to their schools, organizations, communities, and institutions, the call is not simply to remember what was heard at the Summit, but to determine what comes next. Justice rises when we do.
Color of Education led by the Dudley Flood Center for Educational Equity & Opportunity is grateful for the support of the Burroughs Wellcome Fund, Peter and Sandra Conway, Education NC (EDNC), Wake Forest University, ClassLink, Towne Bank, NC Justice Center – In Loving Memory of Matt Ellingwood a fighter for Justice, Tom & MaryMac Bradshaw, North Carolina Association of Educators (NCAE), FlyLeaf Books, UNC School of Education, Education Policy Initiative at Carolina (EPIC), ETS, Kenan Fellows Program, Asheville City Schools Foundation, Schawrtz Law, LLC, UNC Greensboro Department of Educational Leadership and Cultural Foundations, UNC Greensboro School of Education, and Stem Educators for Equity & Diversity Fellowship (SEED)
If you’re interested in sponsoring Color of Education 2027, please contact Deanna Townsend-Smith at dtownsend-smith@ncforum.org or visit https://floodcenter.org/color-of-education/. Sponsorship opportunities for the October 1 – 2, 2027, event is available using this link – https://floodcenter.org/color-of-education/.
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About the Dudley Flood Center for Educational Equity and Opportunity
The Dudley Flood Center for Educational Equity & Opportunity (Flood Center) serves as a hub to identify and connect organizations, networks, and leaders to address issues of access and opportunity in education across North Carolina. Leaning on the 70+ years of experience and wisdom of our namesake Dr. Dudley E. Flood, the Flood Center works collaboratively to take action toward addressing issues of systemic injustice by advocating for structural changes in policy and practice to build a public education system that meets the social, emotional, and academic needs of North Carolina’s diverse student population. Specifically, the Dudley Flood Center exists to transform public education by addressing the structural barriers that limit opportunity and access for PK–12 students and educators. Follow the Flood Center on LinkedIn and visit our website at https://floodcenter.org/.
About the Public School Forum of North Carolina
Since 1986, the Public School Forum of North Carolina has been an indispensable and nonpartisan champion of better schools and the most trusted source in the state for research and analysis on vital education issues. We bring together leaders from business, education and government to study education issues, develop ideas, seek consensus, and ultimately inform and shape education policy. We do that through research, policy work, innovative programs, advocacy, and continuing education for educators and policymakers. Follow the Forum on Twitter @theNCForum and visit our website at http://www.ncforum.org/
About the Samuel DuBois Cook Center on Social Equity
The Samuel DuBois Cook Center on Social Equity is a scholarly collaborative that studies the causes and consequences of inequality and develops remedies for these disparities and their adverse effects. Concerned with the economic, political, social and cultural dimensions of uneven access to resources, opportunity and capabilities, Cook Center researchers take a cross-national comparative approach to the study of human difference and disparity. Considering both global and local shortcomings, Cook Center scholars not only address the overarching social problem of general inequality, but they also explore social problems associated with gender, race, ethnicity and religious affiliation. Follow the Cook Center on Twitter @DukeSocialEQ, on Bluesky @dukesocialeq.bsky.social, and visit our website at https://socialequity.duke.edu/
About the Center for Child and Family Policy at the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University
The Center for Child and Family Policy pursues science-based solutions to important problems affecting today’s children and families. The Center emphasizes the bridge from research to policy and practice through an integrated system of research, teaching, service and policy engagement. Center research has grown to include an array of projects that touch on critical child and family policy issues. Center faculty fellows include a trio of scholars who focus on the effect of economic distress on child development. Other fellows study early childhood, the development of risky behaviors, childhood mental illness and a wide range of education policy issues including school truancy, charter schools, teacher training and education reform efforts.
Follow the Center for Child and Family Policy on Twitter @DukeChildPol and visit our website at https://childandfamilypolicy.duke.edu/