About LEAD[Now]
LEAD[Now] began in 2015 as an opportunity to train young adult leaders as leaders, entrepreneurs, advocates, and dreamers to be successful at creating change in their communities. We believe real change can best be sustained by leaders who can successfully advocate on behalf of their issues, build personal wealth, and live well-rounded lives.
We also believe it is important to tie the training of Now leaders to one of the most successful eras of youth social change in the United States, the civil rights movement. The city of Birmingham is the perfect backdrop to share the power of collective action and foster racial healing for the Now generation.
The 3-day conference includes leadership, entrepreneurship, advocacy, and life training for young professionals and Millennials, a Green Service event in Birmingham Public Schools, entrepreneurship pitch contest, and the Living the Dream awards honoring young leaders doing exceptional work. This year we will also provide training for college seniors as they prepare to enter the workforce.
About Birmingham
If diversity were a place, it would be Birmingham. People who visit here get a taste of that variety—in entertainment, cuisine, the arts, nightlife, the great outdoors—that brings them back time and again.
Birmingham was born out of iron and steel. Remnants of these early beginnings are preserved in places such as Sloss Furnaces National Historic Landmark. The city is also well-known for its prominent role in the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. A visit to the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute gives visitors an in-depth look at that important era.
The area’s antique shops are becoming places of legend in upscale lifestyle magazines around the country. Trendy malls have taken root all over the area, bringing tony, high-end shops to the state’s retail giant. Dozens of new art galleries surprise enthusiasts and collectors with a wide variety of paintings, sculpture, jewelry, ceramics, fine and funk art.
Should you have us pigeonholed as serving only barbeque and fried pies, just remember that Birmingham is home to “the Oscars of dining” with James Beard Foundation Award winners and nominees. Anyone visiting the city should take in the beauty of down-home cooking as well. And visitors with an appetite for live music will find that it is the city’s signature entertainment.
So it is diversity that is this city’s greatest strength and strongest appeal. We are a spectrum of attitudes and cultures that are all a part of the charm and intrigue that is Birmingham.