SNEAK PEEK: Meet NCIL’s 2025 Keynote Speakers!
Reminder: early bird registration rates for NCIL’s 2025 Annual Conference on Independent Living end this Thursday, May 1!
NCIL is proud to announce a few exciting details about this year’s conference.
The theme for the 2025 March and Rally is Our Lives, Our Homes, Our Communities. Together, we will march through the streets of Washington, DC to send a clear message: we are united and determined to preserve our freedom to live independently in our communities!
In honor of the 35th Anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act, we will host a celebration in collaboration with AAPD. A ticket is included with conference registration.
We’ve got an electrifying line up of speakers and a packed agenda. Our Keynote Speakers include:
Keri Gray (Opening Plenary)
Keri Gray is a dynamic entrepreneur, facilitator, cancer survivor, and a passionate advocate for racial and disability justice. As the CEO of Ignite by Keri Gray, she is dedicated to fostering professional communities that are intentional and equitable, with a strong focus on racial and disability justice education. She is the founder of the National Alliance of Melanin Disabled Advocates (the NAMED Advocates), an organization that is reshaping social justice movements’ approach to ableism and building cross-movement solidarity with disabled leaders of color.
Keely Cat-Wells (Awards Luncheon)
Since becoming Disabled in her teens, Keely has worked to advance disability rights. She is the CEO of Making Space, a talent and learning platform that equips Disabled professionals with resources and opportunities to build meaningful careers. Under her leadership, Making Space partnered with NBCUniversal to place the first-ever Disabled hosts on NBC Sports’ Paralympics broadcast for Paris 2024. Their recent documentary “Fight To Fly” exposed the inequalities that Disabled travelers face, triggering policy reform and establishing a Working Group to advise the UK Government.
Ly Xīnzhèn M. Zhǎngsūn Brown (Closing Plenary)
Ly Xīnzhèn M. Zhǎngsūn Brownis an internationally recognized advocate, community organizer, community builder, and scholar-activist whose work addresses interpersonal, corporate, and state violence targeting disabled people at intersections of race, class, gender, sexuality, faith, language, and nation. They were the 2016 recipient of NCIL’s Diana Viets Award. Ly Xīnzhèn is director of public policy at National Disability Institute, where their work advances financial freedom and economic justice for disabled people via law and policy.
