Received the first Black Python Devs Distinguished Service Award
Black Python Devs recognized my contributions with their inaugural Distinguished Service Award
In November 2025, I received an email from Black Python Devs (BPD) leadership informing me that I’m the recipient of the first Black Python Devs Distinguished Service Award. The email, signed by founder Jay Miller and the leadership team, recognized my “extraordinary commitment and outstanding contributions” to the community and noted that my “dedication, leadership, and impact have made a meaningful difference.”
This recognition comes from the community I hold closest to my heart and deeply relate to in mission and purpose. The BPD is a space where I see my own experiences reflected, where the challenges I face are understood without explanation, and where the mission speaks directly to the work I believe needs to be done in the Python ecosystem.
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If you haven’t heard of BPD, it’s a community extending the ecosystem of Python communities to Black and colored communities around the world. The goal is to become the largest community of Black Python developers globally and establish itself as a source for diverse leaders in the greater Python community.
Jay founded the community after observing a concerning pattern. The same handful of Black developers appeared at major conferences, took on leadership positions, and dealt with identical challenges while on the path to burnout. So the Python ecosystem needed broader representation, more voices, and sustainable pathways for Black developers to lead without burning out in the process.
BPD addresses this gap head-on by creating space for developers who might otherwise remain invisible in the broader Python community.
For the past 22 months, I’ve served as Documentation Lead for BPD. My responsibility is to coordinate the community’s documentation efforts around organizing information about its policies, programs, and operations.
Recently, I authored the Black Python Devs Bylaws. These bylaws define how BPD operates, how decisions get made, and how members can participate in governance.
Our documentation efforts for BPD extend beyond serving our own community. We aim to create a template that related Python communities around the world can adopt as a stepping stone to accelerate their establishment and organization. Many Python communities struggle with the same foundational challenges, including how to structure leadership, handle conflicts, ensure transparency in decision-making, and keep the community healthy over time.
There are no easy solutions to these issues, and most communities figure them out through trial and error. BPD aims to help address this by thoroughly documenting our processes, policies, and governance structures, creating a foundation that other communities can build on.
In all, I’m grateful for this recognition and for the wonderful people I’ve met through BPD. But my work with the community is far from over, and moving forward, I look forward to serving the community beyond coordinating their documentation efforts.