Psychedelic Science 2025 Featured Talks About Juneteenth, Black Liberation, Healing the Streets and a Psychedelic Bookmobile
The MAPS’ 2025 Psychedelic Science conference continued with its second full day of panel discussions and events on June 19. The coverage below involves reports on talks that took place on June 19, including the Psychedelic Science Juneteenth celebration, voices of Black liberation fighters and the Black psychedelic revolution, community-based healing for the unhoused and formerly incarcerated, and a psychedelic bookmobile launched by the NYC-based Psychedelic Assembly. Lucid News is publishing a daily roundup of news from the conference, as well as stories covering workshops and events that took place during the week.
Continue reading our reporting for the second day of PS2025 in part two. You can also find our coverage of the opening day of the conference on June 18 here: Part 1 and Part 2.
Juneteenth is Celebrated at PS2025 But Is Also Critical of the Event
“…let’s build trust, let’s build for us,” sang Hanifa Nayo Washington, a Black psychedelic leader. “Brick by brick, bring down your wall. Sit down and listen.” Her voice soothed the audience, seeming to massage hearts with sound. She stood on stage in a green dress strumming her guitar to invoke.
The song was the Juneteenth invocation for the “We Carry the Light” panel, the first of many Black themed panels for Thursday, June 19. First, documentarian Kufikiri Imara, co-director of the film “A Table of Our Own,” MC’ed the opening, followed by Washington’s hypnotic singing.
Next, Pamela Roundtree of Roots to Fruit, a Black psychedelic liberation initiative, took the podium and read a collective letter directed to the event organizers. She pointed out that two years earlier, at Psychedelic Science 2023, it “…became a moment of harm, disappointment and erasure. The failures of PS2023 could have been another dot in the long line of Black exclusion. But we refuse to let that be the story.” Her call to action set the tone for the rest of the panel and day.
Afro-Indigenous leader and organizer Sutton King, invited speakers on stage for the panel, “Voices of Black Liberation Fighters: The Black Psychedelic Revolution.” In walked Kempis Songster, a restorative justice advocate, followed by Harry Grammer, psychologist and founder of New Earth, next was elder Makaya Kelday-Judah, book-ended by Reggie Harris of Oakland Hyphae.
Sutton threaded questions through the conversation. She gently pulled out their bios and tugged to find new angles. Harris, animated and dreadlocks swaying, talked of the liberation of leaving white-majority spaces to found his own organization. Kelday-Juday recounted his activism and spiritual transformation.
Sonster gave one of the most powerful personal stories and wove it in with psychedelic use. He said, “The line you hear, ‘Everything you say can be held against you,’ is why taking accountability and healing is impossible in the criminal justice system.” He reminded the audience of how prison is designed to suppress your voice and that psychedelics were an important step to reclaiming his. Finally, Grammer painted a portrait of the youth he works with and the transforming power of psychedelics.The panel built momentum for the rest of the Black-centered panels to come. It broadened the palette of stories, ideas and angles missing from the more mainstream or policy heavy ones, happening along the halls. After protest and organizing, Black psychedelic activists are carving a space at the table. – Nick Powers
Pamela Roundtree’s Public Statement to the PS2025 Community
To start off my day on June 19 (Juneteenth) at Psychedelic Science 2025, I began at the Black Liberation track. I learned there is a mission spearheaded by the Juneteenth and the Black Planning Committee for PS2025 consisting of Devon Phillips, Hanifa Nayo Washington, Joseph Mccowan, Kevin Cranford, Jr., Kufikiri H. lmara, Pamela Roundtree, Sia Henry, and Sutton King.
The goal of these presentations was to acknowledge, celebrate, center, and affirm Black voices, histories, and futures within the psychedelic movement.
Roundtree’s public statement to the PS2025 community addressed the following points:
- From Disappointment to Action: Honoring Juneteenth and Centering Black Liberation at Psychedelic Science 2025
- Understanding Juneteenth and the ongoing struggle for freedom
- Integrating safety into psychedelic culture
Roundtree was the spokesperson and voice of a collective response towards the lack of Black and Indigenous inclusion at Psychedelic Science 2023. She commented on the perspectives that led to a protest on the PS23 stage at the conclusion of the event.
“The failures of PS2023 could have been just another dot in the long line of Black exclusion. But we refuse to let that be the story,” said Roundtree. “In response to the harm experienced by many Black attendees, Black members of the MAPS team, alongside Black leaders in the psychedelic community, have come together to form the Juneteenth and Black Planning Committee for Psychedelic Science 2025. This committee was created because we will not idly stand by and allow another conference to diminish the power, presence, and shine of Black people in this field. In 2025, Psychedelic Science once again falls during Juneteenth – but this time, we are doing it differently.”
Indeed, the Committee did things differently in 2025. After her presentation, I interviewed Roundtree about the services she offers to Black community members who are interested in psychedelics. Then I attended a sold out Juneteenth dinner which exemplified a unified community. – Vaughn Jefferson
Voices of Black Liberation Fighters
On Thursday, June 19 (Juneteenth), at Psychedelic science 2025, I had the honor of capturing the “Voices of Black Liberation Fighters: The Black Psychedelic Revolution” panel discussion. Moderated by Sutton King, MPH (AfroIndigenous, Menominee/Oneida) who introduced the panelists, King set the stage with empowering opening remarks which you can watch here.
“Today, here at Psychedelic Science,” said King. “I remind us all that plant medicine is not a new fad – it is an ancestral practice, rooted in the survival and liberation of Black and Indigenous peoples. Even as psychedelic science gains momentum in mainstream circles, we must call out the silent killers in our communities: internalized oppression, economic disenfranchisement, and the lingering stigmas left by the War on Drugs.
This is not about Black folks doing “white things;” it is about reclaiming what has always been ours. Our ancestors relied on sacred medicines to heal, to resist, and to survive European colonial enslavement and its generational legacies. It is my honor to moderate this conversation among revolutionary voices who challenge us to imagine liberation free of white validation – because the struggle for Black freedom is deeply intertwined with Indigenous sovereignty. Let’s begin by honoring our panelists, each a formidable force in the movement for healing and liberation.”
King then interviewed the panelists Harry Grammer, Reggie Harris, Kempis “Ghani” Songster, and Veronza Bowers. She ended the panel with heartfelt closing remarks.
“As we draw this powerful conversation to a close, I want to extend my deepest gratitude to each panelist. Your courage to speak your truth, to name our collective wounds, and to envision a future where Black and Indigenous souls reclaim what is rightfully ours is nothing short of revolutionary.
Let this conversation serve as a reminder that our healing is inherently a political act, a reclaiming of our ancestral rights to joy, unity, and self-determination. May we carry this energy into our communities, our organizing, and our daily lives.
Thank you for being here, for being brave, and for continuing to honor the sacred work of generational healing.” – Vaughn Jefferson
Holistic Detox and Recovery Support System (HDRSS) Uses Ancestral Wisdom to Help Former Addicts
In this video, hear from Xochitl Bernadette Moreno, co-founder of Esphera, as well as Raymond Gil and Leajay Harper, two formerly unhoused Californians in recovery. They comment on their June 19 panel at Psychedelic Science 2025 titled “Ancestral Medicine – Healing in the Streets: Grassroots Holistic Detox and Recovery.” Panel speakers include Moreno, Gil, Harper, Ashel SeaSunz Eldridge, and Monica Cadena as moderator.
Esphera is a collective focused on “liberation through land, food, media and medicine.” One of their projects, Essential Food and Medicine (EFAM), focuses on distributing nutrition to formerly incarcerated, unhoused, and indigenous communities. EFAM’s Holistic Detox and Recovery Support System program, which uses culturally-rooted, community based healing for those recovering from addiction, homelessness, and incarceration, is the subject of this panel. – Joelle DelPrete
NYC’s Psychedelic Library Becomes a Bookmobile
After two years of gathering scientists, artists, and activists in a single space, New York City’s only psychedelic library, The Athenaeum, has closed its doors. Originally in midtown Manhattan just blocks away from the United Nations, the landlord recently sold the building in which the library operated, forcing Athenaeum CEO Kat Lakey and the project’s team members to pack every book into storage just three days before their panel discussion, titled “Holding Space: How a Library United NYC’s Psychedelic Community,” at Psychedelic Science.
Despite the challenges, their operating organization, The Psychedelic Assembly, and their community-creating spirit lives on. “Our currency is connection,” said co-founder Suzy Baker who, together with Lakey, talked about their plans to evolve the library into a traveling bookmobile.
The library began in 2022, when Lakey and Baker—friends who’d first met during an ayahuasca retreat in Peru—reunited in New York and talked about hosting a psychedelic conference that would be a leveling ground for speakers and audience alike. Their first self-produced conference featured Dennis McKenna, Julie Holland, and Leonard Pickard was a success and they decided to continue hosting events.
They crowdfunded $12,000—completely in small donations—to create the Psychedelic Assembly and its Athenaeum, a cozy den inside Manhattan’s Blue Building that was part social club and part library. The space hosted more than 200 events, from immersive theater to author book launches, with no big investors and just one paid employee. They credit their volunteers—who filled the front row of the panel discussion—for making this possible.
Reflecting with emotion, Lakey said she couldn’t walk five minutes at the conference without bumping into a speaker, author, or member who connected with the library. The co-founders announced their next venture for the organization.
“We are planning on moving our entire book collection onto a bus, and we are going to make a psychedelic bookmobile, psychedelic Scholastic-style,” said Baker. “Check us out in a city near you!”
Lakey said that their intent is to travel the country as a “psychedelic Trojan Horse,” planting seeds of information and connection while the Psychedelic Assembly searches for its next physical home. – Andrew Meissen
Disclosure: the author of this news brief is a volunteer for the Psychedelic Assembly.