It Is Better to Speak: Reflections for the Year Ahead
by Color Congress Staff
Drawing inspiration for this title from ancestor Audre Lorde.
As we close out 2025, our team at Color Congress have reflected on what we are carrying forward into 2026, and what we are leaving behind.
Sahar Driver, Co-Founder/Co-Executive Director
“I arrive at the dinner table and immediately my friend begins to tell me about a troubling experience she had earlier that day. I go to a conference and hear activists speak on panels about their recent encounters on the frontlines. I enter a dark theatre and am immediately immersed in new worlds I may never have encountered otherwise. Storytelling permeates my everyday in both subtle and the most profound ways, functioning as testimony, confession, time-travel, demand. In every case, the storytelling that I encounter invites connection, understanding, and engagement. I am carrying into 2026 my profound belief in the power of storytelling (and documentary in particular) to transport audiences across time and space in meaningful ways. This year alone I encountered a family and community breaking the silence around the intergenerational trauma of Indian residential schooling in Canada; a horse trainer, a music school teacher, and two young brothers who insist on life, love, and survival in Gaza; the fraught spiritual attempts of a family aiming to expel an entity from their beloved son in Southwest China; a queer filmmaker who traces a new map of his home town in Lebanon; journalists in Mexico who commit their lives to the truth; a generation rising up and risking safety for freedom in Sudan; and the tender love and learning that passes between a grandmother and her grandson coming of age in French Guiana. I leave trauma centered practices to the composting bin of 2025, supportive of re-alignment and collective attunement that more deeply points to liberation. Storytelling has a key role to play here.”
Sonya Childress, Co-Founder/Co-Executive Director
“The honest truth is that I spent many days this year feeling the weight of Baldwin’s words, “To be a Negro in this country and to be relatively conscious is to be in a state of rage almost, almost all of the time — and in one’s work.” Those feelings of rage and despair were a natural response to witnessing injustice unfold across waters and across my city. But this year my body warned me of the consequences of allowing those emotions to take root, so next year I aim to lean into what actually fuels me and what all humans deserve to experience — joy, hope, pleasure, care and love. Ojibwe film worker Jesse Wente says that “one of the simplest ways to decolonize is to create,” and I am grateful to walk into 2026 alongside the brilliant thinkers, healers and creators within Color Congress who everyday dream better worlds into existence.”
Michelle Y. Hurtubise, Membership & Events Manager
“Coming into 2025, I did not realize how transformative this year of the Wood Snake would be. Personally, there have been so many positive and big life changes, like getting married and completing my Ph.D. However, this was coupled with a politically destructive era that continues to be violent. What allowed me to find a way forward and some balance, was by being in community with our Color Congress member organizations. Similar to how member Kendi King reflected during the National Convening, I found strength in the work you are all doing everyday. Our communities are fighting on so many different frontlines, but we are not alone. I will carry forward the innovation, resilience and joy in our membership. I hope to leave behind being repeatedly disappointed by a hegemonic system that was not made for us. And I commit to continuing to lean into the spaces that we create and the stories that we tell by us, for us.”
Jina Chung, Development Director
Andrea Ayala, Finance & Operations Coordinator
“2025 was a whirlwind of new and plenty of firsts — my first film festival, new faces, and plenty of successful events to put under my belt. 2026 for me will begin with a much anticipated move to a new city and I’m looking forward to adventures and friendships. “
