B. Open Impromptu Event Prompts
Round 1 - 10:30
Speaker 1
“The future is already here — it’s just not evenly distributed.” — William Gibson
“The greatest teacher, failure is.” — Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back
“Stories of imagination tend to upset those without one.” — Terry Pratchett
Speaker 2
“We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.” — Oscar Wilde
“Life finds a way.” — Jurassic Park
“Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four.” — George Orwell
Speaker 3
“There is no such thing as a harmless weapon.” — Lois McMaster Bujold
“You are who you choose to be.” — The Iron Giant
“The future is not set.” — Terminator 2: Judgment Day
Speaker 4
“We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of dreams.” — Arthur C. Clarke
“The best way to predict the future is to invent it.” — Alan Kay
“What is grief, if not love persevering?” — WandaVision
Speaker 5
“You must never feel frightened to become a piece of the puzzle.” — Douglas Adams
“There are no ordinary people.” — C.S. Lewis
“To confine our attention to terrestrial matters would be to limit the human spirit.” — Stephen Hawking
Speaker 6
“The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.” — Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
“When you want a thing done well, do it yourself.” — Robert A. Heinlein
“The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom.” — Isaac Asimov
Speaker 7
“The Force will be with you. Always.” — Star Wars
“It pays to keep an open mind, but not so open your brains fall out.” — Carl Sagan
“You can’t take back what you’ve already done.” — Arthur C. Clarke
Round 2 - 2:00
Speaker 1
“If there is no struggle, there is no progress.” — Frederick Douglass
“The cost of liberty is less than the price of repression.” — W. E. B. Du Bois
“We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.” — Martin Luther King Jr.
Speaker 2
“You are your best thing.” — Toni Morrison
“I have learned over the years that when one’s mind is made up, this diminishes fear.” — Rosa Parks
“The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any.” — Alice Walker
Speaker 3
“You must never be fearful about what you are doing when it is right.” — Rosa Parks
“Service is the rent we pay for living.” — Shirley Chisholm
“Truth is powerful and it prevails.” — Sojourner Truth
Speaker 4
“Justice is what love looks like in public.” — Cornel West
“Love takes off masks that we fear we cannot live without.” — James Baldwin
“Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor.” — Martin Luther King Jr.
Speaker 5
“You have to act as if it were possible to radically transform the world.” — Angela Davis
“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.” — Maya Angelou
“I am no longer accepting the things I cannot change.” — Angela Davis
Speaker 6
“History has shown us that courage can be contagious.” — Michelle Obama
“If you are silent about your pain, they’ll kill you and say you enjoyed it.” — Zora Neale Hurston
“A people without the knowledge of their past history is like a tree without roots.” — Marcus Garvey
Speaker 7
“You can kill a revolutionary, but you can’t kill the revolution.” — Fred Hampton
“Excellence is the best deterrent to racism.” — Oprah Winfrey
“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” — Martin Luther King Jr.
Final Rd - 3:45 (Draw at 3:30)
Speaker 1
“The past is not dead. It’s not even past.” — William Faulkner
“To be black and conscious in America is to be in a constant state of rage.” — James Baldwin
“There is no such thing as a single-issue struggle.” — Audre Lorde
Speaker 2
“You cannot dismantle the master’s house with the master’s tools.” — Audre Lorde
“Culture is a battlefield.” — Stuart Hall
“Racism is a visceral experience.” — Claudia Rankine
Speaker 3
“Black joy is an act of resistance.” — Brittney Cooper
“We are living in a surveillance society.” — Simone Browne
“The archive is a site of power.” — Saidiya Hartman
Speaker 4
“Colorblindness is not justice.” — Michelle Alexander
“History is not neutral.” — Ibram X. Kendi
“Power is not only what you have but what the enemy thinks you have.” — Saul Alinsky
Speaker 5
“Antiracism is a radical choice.” — Ibram X. Kendi
“The narrative is never neutral.” — Nikole Hannah-Jones
“Silence is a strategy of power.” — Sarah Ahmed
Speaker 6
“Capitalism exploits racial difference.” — Cedric Robinson
“Liberation requires imagination.” — Robin D. G. Kelley
“Respectability will not protect us.” — Mikki Kendall
Speaker 7
“Black radical imagination is necessary.” — Robin D. G. Kelley
“Hope is not naïve; it is strategic.” — Brittney Cooper
“Structural inequality is not accidental.” — Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor
Final Rd - 5:30
Speaker 1
“There is no single answer that will solve all of our future problems.” — Octavia E. Butler
“The future is ours to write.” — Lovecraft Country
“Bury me in the ocean with my ancestors who jumped from ships.” — Black Panther
Speaker 2
“The function of freedom is to free someone else.” — Toni Morrison
“Even if it makes others uncomfortable, I will love who I am.” — Janelle Monáe
“I survived because the fire inside me burned brighter than the fire around me.” — The Hate U Give
Speaker 3
“Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.” — James Baldwin
“You wanna fly, you got to give up the thing that weighs you down.” — Toni Morrison
“We can’t be afraid to tell the truth about ourselves.” — Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Speaker 4
“There are years that ask questions and years that answer.” — Zora Neale Hurston
“We are the ones we have been waiting for.” — June Jordan
“Dreams are today’s answers to tomorrow’s questions.” — Edgar Cayce
Speaker 5
“The revolution will not be televised.” — The Revolution Will Not Be Televised
“When they go low, we go high.” — Michelle Obama
“The only lasting truth is change.” — Octavia E. Butler
Speaker 6
“The system isn’t broken. It was built this way.” — The Matrix Reloaded
“Kindness eases change.” — Octavia E. Butler
“In times of crisis, the wise build bridges.” — Black Panther
Speaker 7
“All that you touch you change. All that you change changes you.” — Octavia E. Butler
“The future belongs to those who prepare for it today.” — Malcolm X
“My humanity is bound up in yours.” — Desmond Tutu