Sixty-three years ago this August, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and delivered one of the most memorable speeches in American history.
At the heart of King’s “dream” speech — "that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed" – was a vision for a society built, not on making peace with inequality, but on its structural dismantling, where equity is not just aspirational, but foundational.
On Wednesday, August 19 at 3pm ET, just eight days before the anniversary of King’s speech, the on-going webinar series hosted by the Community Broadband Networks Initiative at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR) and the National Digital Inclusion Alliance (NDIA) returns to pose a pointed question to the digital inclusion community: what is our dream for digital equity — and what kind of ecosystems do we need to, at last, build a “Beloved (connected) Community?”
Registration is now open here.
The live-streamed webinar — "Normalcy, Never Again" — takes its name from the spirit of King's August 28, 1963 address and will serve as a rallying point to reaffirm that the digital equity movement will not accept business as usual or be managed into irrelevance, even if the face of a federal government actively dismantling the programs and protections that were supposed to close the digital divide.
It will bring together a roster of voices from the front lines of the digital equity fight — including advocates, educators, librarians, healthcare providers, and community broadband builders doing the unglamorous, essential work of getting people connected.
The aim is to reaffirm that the removal of structural barriers is the work, as tens of millions of Americans are still without reliable, affordable Internet access, digital skills training, and devices; none of which are an accident of geography or of market forces.
More specifically, the webinar will examine what real modernization looks like and explore the striking geography of the digital landscape along Martin Luther King boulevards across the country.
One of the webinar's central themes will be the language of "modernization" — a word that has been weaponized by telecom monopolies and their allies to justify abandoning universal service obligations, retiring copper networks without adequate replacements, and gutting the regulatory frameworks that protect consumers. Digital equity leaders in California will make the case for what real modernization is — and is not.
Concluding the webinar will be a roundtable discussion around how community coalitions can reduce digital inequity and strengthen democracy, expanding on the legacy of King and the Civil Rights Movement’s commitment to building inclusive communities.
The livestream will be available on Facebook, YouTube, and LinkedIn with live viewer questions answered by the invited speakers and presenters.
We recommend viewing it on YouTube where the live chat will be most engaging.
Register for the webinar here.
Watch the last Building for Digital Equity below:
Header image of Martin Luther King Jr. courtesy of Public Domain
