NSB Logo Sandy Hudson Sandy Hudson

Sandy Hudson

Speaker

Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Political Activist & Founder of the Black Lives Matter Movement Canada

The founder of the Black Lives Matter movement presence in Canada and Black Lives Matter – Toronto, Sandy Hudson also co-founded the Black Legal Action Centre, a specialty legal aid clinic, which provides direct legal services and test case litigation for Black communities in Ontario. Sandy currently serves as the Director of Strategic Planning for the Wildseed Centre for Art & Activism, and co-hosts the Sandy and Nora Talk Politics podcast.

Keynote Speeches

We Will Win: A Campaign Framework For Creating Social Change

Oftentimes, those who are best suited to design solutions for social issues are not in positions of power to do so. Organizations today need a sophisticated strategy in order to effectively influence decision-makers. In this presentation, Sandy uses her experiences as a student, labour and anti-racist organizer to show participants how they can meet their goals. Whether strategizing to change organizations, public policy or legislation, Sandy helps organizations to understand that change is possible and helps them to design a roadmap to achieve it.

Key Takeaways:
• How to engage via a vision 
• Collective and coalition change making 
• A strategic framework for planning campaigns.

Activating Anti-Racism

Racism is far more complex and pervasive a phenomenon than how it is commonly understood. This workshop is a comprehensive introduction to what racism is, how to recognize it, how it operates and how to actively address it in organizations and as individuals. Engaging in anti-racist work for over a 15 years, Sandy has developed a participatory teaching style using interactive activities, case studies, and audience participation to create the ideal atmosphere to learn about the difficult topic of racism. As an anti-racist scholar and activist, Sandy will also use first-person storytelling to engage participants to consider how they can shift into active anti-racist action throughout their lives.

Key Takeaways:
• An understanding of social location, power and privilege
• An understand what society constructs as “normal” and “other”
• How to critically reflect on media and cultural narratives about race

Breaking The Mold: Organizing From The Individual To The Infinite

If there’s one constant truth in the world of digital organizing, it’s that organizations struggle to meaningfully connect with their supporters. In engaging with new media as an approach to organizing, we cannot forget the fundamental peer-to-peer organizing skills we need to engage people in real life. We need to blow open our imaginations and find new ways to build real community as part of our work. In this keynote, Sandy explores what it means to break through to isolated communities.

Key Takeaways:
• One-on-one campaign organizing strategies
• Public speaking skills
• Crafting a compelling message for individual consumption

Designing Inclusive, Effective Meetings

The first step to almost any organizational initiative typically includes a meeting. In order to have an effective meeting, your participants need to feel prepared and included. Almost everyone has had the experience of attending a meeting that meanders or of being overwhelmed by rules of order. As an experienced facilitator, Sandy knows how to make meetings run smoothly, and to encourage every participant to feel prepared and supported. The goal of this workshop is to provide participants with effective strategies to ensure that meetings help the decision-making process and contribute to an effective organizational structure.

Key Takeaways:
• Engaging all participants
• Meeting preparation
• Rules of order

Platform Plus Presentations

Unique formats and ways to connect with audiences.
Workshop | Understanding Anti Black Racism
This workshop will use interactive activities, case studies, a casual lecturing style and audience participation to create the ideal atmosphere to learn about the difficult topic of anti-Black racism. This workshop will be beneficial for participants with varying levels of understanding of anti-Black racism, and will be tailored to the experiences and expertise of the workshop participants. Key Takeaways: • How standpoints can affect what you know and how you observe. • How to tackle anti-Black racism at work & in your personal life.

Audience reviews:

  • Sandy Hudson is by far one of the most powerful speakers I have ever come across. She is able to unpack complex themes and ideas, is adaptive in her approach, and creates a narrative that leaves her audience spellbound. Drawing from both expertise and experience, she connects diaspora, feminism, racial justice and transformation in ways that connect across social locations.

    - Campaign Director, Color of Change
  • When Sandy Hudson speaks, people listen – she is genuine and powerful in relaying to others her extensive experience organizing and mobilizing. Hearing and learning from her is a great way to support and prepare folks to fight for justice in their communities.

    - President, CUPE Ontario
  • Sandy is an inspiring educator whom I've witnessed for years brilliantly move audiences to deepen their understanding of social justice and fuel their passion into taking action. She inspires courage in everyone that she meets. She's a strong, passionate and dynamic speaker who has consistently found ways to encourage and support diverse audiences to believe they can achieve the change they wish to see in the world.

    - National Women’s and Human Rights Representative, Canadian Labour Congress
  • Excellent speaker, workshop facilitator, and critical thinker. Sandra is a doer, action-oriented in her approach and has a way of bringing people back on the issues. A theory-practice fit advocate with a futuristic agenda.

    - Professor and Director of the Centre for Integrative Anti-Racism Studies, University of Toronto
  • Sandra is a natural leader and teacher, a passionate and articulate voice on some of the most important issues we face. She is a superb communicator, with a great gift for finding the common ground we need to make a better society. Hers is a voice for today, and for the future.

    - Producer, CBC Radio One
 

Speaker Biography

Sandy Hudson is a producer, activist, public speaker, award-winning author, lawyer, and the co-founder of production company Above the Palace and Black Lives Matter movement in Canada. Using an inspiring leadership style, she can simplify complex ideas. By finding common ground, she speaks out about issues such as anti-Black racism, diversity, equity, and inclusion in production and in the workplace.

Above the Palace’s (ATP) first project, a short film titled Aftercare, made its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 13. The film tells the story of an emotionally charged reunion between a woman and the person she used to babysit. In a joint statement the founders Diverlus, Momin and Hudson said they believe they have the ability to tap into the zeitgeist to understand what the younger, more diverse audiences of today are craving.

Through her community work, Hudson helped found the Black Legal Action Centre, a Black community-based legal aid clinic providing direct legal services and test case litigation in Ontario, and she also co-founded Wildseed Centre for Art & Activism a Black-owned community centre that seeks to nurture Black creativity and experimentation. Sandy’s passion lies with the BIPOC community and she challenges and inspires society through cultural change and social justice. 

Among Maclean’s 2021 Power List, Hudson is recognized as one of the most influential people in Canada. Among her many accolades, she has been named on Refinery29’s list of “29 Power Houses“, Toronto Life’s list of “50 Most Influential Torontonians“, and the list of “100 Black Women to Watch” by Canada International Black Women. She has been featured in the New York Times, Newsweek, NPR, the Toronto Star, CTV News, CP24, Global News, Buzzfeed, and KTLA.

Hudson is co-author of the best-selling anthology, Until We Are Free: Reflections on Black Lives Matter in Canada. Her writing appears in Maclean’s magazine, Chatelaine, FLARE magazine, Washington Post, Toronto Star, and Huffington Post. Hudson is the co-executive producer of Black Life: A Canadian History, an eight-part documentary series about Black Canadian History which aired on CBC Fall 2023.

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