At PyCon US this year we made the joke that Black Python Devs was like soul food for the Python Community.

I’m from the Southern United States and there are three truths about soul food:

The first truth is that soul food comes from a history of struggle and exclusion. US soul food is rooted in the history of slavery and having to make the best of what were considered the scraps of meat and pieces that no one wanted. Even after slavery, soul food became what poor and segregated folks were able to put together from their farms and whatever items they could get in the age of sharecropping, Jim Crow, and segregation. To put it bluntly, soul food was people trying to make the best out of a situation that could be better.

The second truth is soul food is different based on where you’re from. Sometimes the differences are subtle, like how the mac and cheese is made. In other cases there can be entire food items. These items align with what is possible in the region. More seafood on the coast and along the waterways and more chicken and pork where farmland is aplenty.

The last truth is that soul food is food that is supposed to remind you of home. No one makes soul food like my late grandmother and if you’re from where I’m from you may say the same thing about your grandmother’s cooking. My grandmother passed away 10 years ago, but to this day it’s still the rubric, for what I would consider good food.

Black Python Devs is the Soul Food of the Python Community

Black Python Devs was built out of struggle. Many Black, Latino, Caribbean, and African leaders have been trying to make the Python community feel more welcoming for their fellow developers and have found home with Black Python Devs mission where we share all kinds of information with one another.

Black Python Devs also has different impact based on where you’re from. In Africa, we’re trying to support events and build new leadership pipelines. In South America, we’re trying to provide resources for those helping our Afro-Latino developers. In the US we’re trying to make sure that meetups and events are accessible and psychologically safe for Black developers. All of this work is important and requires different ingredients but all result in services that impact the communities based on what is desired.

At the end of the day, Black Python Devs wants to be the lasting reminder of why you stayed for the community. And just like soul food, we hope that our recipes make it outside of our community to have a positive effect on Python and greater developer communities.

A great example of how we’re doing this is with our free Python Community Leadership Summit, which this year will be held July 24, 2026 in Cleveland, Ohio. There we’ll share insights and thoughts from a diverse lineup of speakers, and inject a little BPD seasoning to it. This event is open to all that are or would like to become a leader in the Python community at any level and we hope to share it around the world.

A word from our sponsors

We’re thankful for the support of Black Python Devs corporate sponsors. These sponsors help fund our BPD Events as well as cover infrastructure, and support traveling to sponsored events.