This session traces the deep lineage of Black protest and the unfinished story of direct action in the United States. We will consider how Black communities have long organized, disrupted, and created under conditions of constraint, and how these practices continue to shape the present. From collective refusals to carefully planned interventions, direct action has always been a tool for asserting power and possibility. Guiding us is Epiphany Summers, Program Coordinator with the Center for Third World Organizing at the BlackOUT Collective, where she supports and develops Black direct action practitioners across the country. Together, we will study how these traditions live on and ask what it means to carry them forward in our own time.

This session takes us deeper into the practice of direct action by examining the four core frames that guide its design. Together, we will consider how Black organizers and communities can become more intentional in the choices we make: where we intervene, how we escalate, and what stories our actions tell. The use of the term "strategy" here is not abstracted; it is grounded in clarity of purpose and the discipline of planning. Led by Epiphany Summers of the Center for Third World Organizing at the BlackOUT Collective, this conversation will move beyond inspiration to the mechanics of effective action. Participants will leave with frameworks to sharpen their approach, and with a shared sense of how strategic direct action strengthens Black freedom struggles across time and place.