Presenters

A Scribe Called Quess? aka Michael “Quess?” Moore is a poet, educator, actor, playwright, activist and organizer in that order. He is a 2-time national poetry slam champion and founding member of Team SNO (Slam New Orleans), New Orleans’ three-time national poetry slam championship team… More

Abby VanMuijen is a Berkeley, CA-based graphic recorder, illustrator and the founder of RogueMark Studios. She has been graphic recording and training other graphic recorders for 7+ years. She studied Urban Planning and International Development at UC Berkeley and uses this academic… More

Adam Carr is an independent based in Milwaukee, WI, who works at the intersection of community and communication. Carr’s work ranges from writing to media, photography to film making, public art to in-depth tours. He was co-chair for the Coordinating Committee of March On Milwaukee 50th… More

Alana is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Sociology at the University of California, Davis. Her research uses an intersectional, feminist approach to study inequalities in the food system, focusing on food banks and the private food assistance system. She engages in public scholarship… More

Alsie Parks is an Atlanta-native, that advocates and activates the use of food as an organizing tool for healing and liberation. As a child of the south, farmer organizer and agrarian cultural worker she serves by cultivating intimate and responsive relationships with and for the land and our people that activate remembrance… More

Amber Butts is a storyteller, cultural strategist, and grief worker who believes that Black folks are already whole. Her work asks big and small questions about how we move towards actualizing spaces that center tenderness, nuance, and joy, while living in a world reliant on our terror… More

Amir Khadar

Andreanecia M. Morris serves as the Executive Director for HousingNOLA, a 10-year public private partnership working to end New Orleans’ affordable housing crisis.  The 10-year Strategy and Implementation Plan indicates the need for 33,600 affordable housing opportunities by 2025… More

Arlene Goldbard is a writer, speaker, consultant, visual artist, and cultural activist whose focus is the intersection of culture, politics and spirituality. Her blog and other writings may be downloaded from her website: www.arlenegoldbard.com. She was born in New York and grew up near San Francisco… More

Asali DeVan Ecclesiastes is a mother, daughter, educator, organizer, author, event producer, performance artist, and community servant. Most know her by her many pursuits, but the way this writer knows herself and the world around her, is through her exploration of the word.  Embedded in the cultural… More

Ausettua AmorAmenkum is committed to the preservation, documentation and presentation of traditional and indigenous cultural art forms from Africa and New Orleans. The Director of Kumbuka African Drum & Dance Collective; her company has presented traditional African dance… More

Andrew Wiseman is a world musician and master drummer. He has performed in theatrical productions and festivals throughout the United States, France and West Africa. He is committed to the perpetuation and preservation of West African retentive cultural and musical traditions… More

Dr. Barbara Ransby John D. MacArthur Chair, and Distinguished Professor, in the Departments of African American Studies, Gender and Women’s Studies, and History at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) where she directs the campus-wide Social Justice Initiative, a project that promotes… More

Dr. Bidhan Chandra Roy is a professor of English Literature at California State University, Los Angeles, where he has taught for the past thirteen years. Trained in postcolonial studies, Bidhan received his PhD from Goldsmiths College, University of London… More

Brett Snyder is an Associate Professor of Design at the University of California Davis and a principal of Cheng+Snyder an experimental architecture and design studio based in Oakland, California. Much of Snyder’s work, at the intersection of architecture and media, focuses on the ways… More

Over the past 20 years, Calvin Williams has been worldbuilding for liberation.
He believes radical imagination activates our power to transform liberatory possibilities into irresistible realities. As Cultural Strategies Fellow at Movement Strategy Center, he conspires with… More

Carlton Turner is an artist, agriculturalist, researcher and founder of the Mississippi Center for Cultural Production (Sipp Culture). Sipp Culture uses food and story to support rural community, cultural, and economic development in his hometown of Utica, Mississippi… More

New Orleans native, Co-founder and Executive Director of Efforts of Grace,Inc./ Ashé Cultural Arts Center, Bebelle is a constant voice and advocate for the primal influence of culture in emerging equity, justice and compassion in American society. This learning and insight was derived from… More

Caron Atlas is director of Arts & Democracy, which cross-fertilizes arts and culture, civic participation, and community change. She also directs Naturally Occurring Cultural Districts NY (NOCD-NY), a citywide alliance revitalizing NYC from the neighborhood up… More

Catherine Murphy has spent much of the last 20 years working in Latin America. She is founder & director of The Literacy Project, documentary, oral histories that collect personal testimonies about adult literacy in the Americas. As an independent producer, Murphy’s work… More

Christina Preston is a research associate for Imagining America’s Leading and Learning Initiative. She graduated with a master’s of science in community and regional development from UC Davis in 2016. She also holds a bachelor’s of arts in anthropology from Sacramento State University… More

Darianna Videaux – Capitel holds a Bachelor Degree in Classical Performance from the University of the Arts of Havana and a Master Degree in Jazz at Contemporary Improvisation from The University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre and Dance.  She taught bass for kids and adolescents… More

Denise Griffin Johnson is the director of the Arch Social Community Network in West Baltimore, a community-led cultural organizing network founded in 2015 and based at the historic Arch Social Club. Denise has decades of experience as an organizer and advocate in Baltimore… More

Dance for Social Change Teen Company is a New Orleans based performance group that uses their artistic voices to advocate for justice. They examine social issues impacting their communities, create original multidisciplinary performances about those issues, and organize the annual Dance… More

Erica Kohl-Arenas is an Associate Professor in American Studies at the University of California, Davis and the Faculty Director of Imagining America: Artists and Scholars in Public Life. She is a scholar of social movements, freedom struggles, and the politics of institutionalization… More

Educator, entertainer, emcee, and New Orleans native Frederick “Wood” Delahoussaye has propelled through the elements of artistry, socially engaged interdisciplinary projects and entertainment for almost two decades. He serves as Artist in Residence and Artistic Director for the Ashé Cultural Arts Center… More

E. Gale Greenlee, Ph.D. (she/her/hers) is an ACLS/Emerging Voices Fellow in the Department of Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies at The Ohio State University. She holds a doctorate in African American literature from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and her research… More

Gwen Johnson has been a leader in the Letcher County Culture Hub since its founding in 2016. She is longtime secretary-treasurer of the Hemphill Community Center, a Culture Hub partner, where she directs the Center’s day-to-day operations and founded the Black Sheep Brick Oven Bakery… More

Jai’ Celestial (He/Him) is a Black and Southern boi with a passion for hitting his lil jig, cooking meals for his fam and keeping your elder’s favorite quotes alive and in the rotation.
Born and raised in Baton Rouge and  politicized in New Orleans, Jai’ holds over 10 years… More

Nana Sula Spirit… Woman of Peace is a Singer, Songwriter, Author, Entrepreneur, Artist, Producer,  Birth Doula, Professor and Priestess of Light. She was initiated in Ghana, West Africa as a traditional healer in 2007 and has studied African Spiritual Traditions since 1985. In 2014, Sula Spirit authored and produced… More

Growing up in Kansas City, Missouri, Jawole Willa Jo Zollar earned her B.A. in dance from the University of Missouri at Kansas City and her M.F.A. in dance from Florida State University. In 1980 Jawole moved to New York City to study with Dianne McIntyre at Sounds in Motion… More

Jeff Chang is the Vice President for Narrative, Arts and Culture at Race Forward. A national leader in narrative and cultural strategy, Jeff co-founded CultureStr/ke and ColorLines. He was named by The Utne Reader as one of “50 Visionaries Who Are Changing Your World”… More

Jeffrey Hou, PhD, is Professor of Landscape Architecture and the Director of Urban Commons Lab at the University of Washington, Seattle. His work focuses on public space, democracy, community design, and civic engagement. In a career that spans the Pacific, he has worked with indigenous tribes… More

John Harris grew up in Louisiana and was reared with a social consciousness and community spirit that still drives him today in his work in Baltimore. He is secretary of the board of directors for the Arch Social Community Network (ASCN) at the Historic Arch Social Club, whose mission is to enrich… More

Ecuadorian-born José Torres-Tama is a published poet and playwright, an arts educator, cultural activist, and visual and performance artist. He explores the underbelly of the “North American Dream” mythology and post-9/11 blind nationalism that has led to rampant anti-immigrant… More

Justin Wolfe is a William Arceneaux Professor of Latin American History and Suzanne and Stephen Weiss Presidential Fellow. He specializes in Central America, particularly post-colonial social and cultural history. His research interest include nation-formation, race and ethnicity… More

Kal Alston is professor in Cultural Foundations of Education and in Women’s and Gender Studies at Syracuse University. She is Associate Dean for Academic Programs in the School of Education and previously served as Senior Associate Provost and Senior Vice President… More

Kim Szeto is currently Program Director, Public Art at the New England Foundation for the Arts.  Kim grew up in Boston and has a deep love for this city and all its complexities.  She’s a graduate of Wheaton College (MA) and has a background in Environmental Studies… More

Laura Harjo is a Mvskoke scholar and an associate professor teaching Indigenous Planning, Community Development and Indigenous Feminisms at the University of Oklahoma’s department of Native American Studies. Her scholarly inquiry is at the intersection of geography… More

The sisters, Mulowayi and Mapenzi are Las Nietas de Nonó . They were raised between the Manuel A. Pérez housing project in Río Piedras and the San Antón neighborhood in Carolina. Their artistic practices stem from the Afro-Diasporic experience in the island-colony context highlighting… More

Lilian Lombera has worked for 15 years in Cuba as a cultural producer, curating musical performances, films, literature, and visual arts. With a degree in Art History, her educational experience includes teaching Cuban music and culture at University of Havana. She has collaborated with… More

Lisa Yun Lee (BA, Bryn Mawr College, Ph.D, Duke University) is a cultural activist and the Executive Director of the National Public Housing Museum. Lisa is also an Associate Professor in Art History and Gender and Women’s Studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and teaching faculty with… More

Lizbeth De La Cruz Santana (she/her/hers) is the daughter of immigrant parents from Jalisco, Mexico and a fifth year Ph.D. Candidate at the University of California Davis working towards a Ph.D. in Spanish with an emphasis on Human Rights. As part of her dissertation work, she has coined the Childhood… More

Mallika Bose is an architect (Jadavpur University, Kolkata – India and School of Planning and Architecture, New Delhi, India) and urban planner with a specialization in environment-behavior studies (Kansas State University and University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee)… More

Margo Okazawa-Rey, Professor Emerita San Francisco State University, is an activist and educator working on issues of militarism, armed conflict, and violence against women examined intersectionally. She has long-standing activist commitments in South Korea and Palestine, working closely… More

Marie José Poux is a native of Haiti who resides in New Orleans. She is a retired hospice nurse who makes several trips a year to her native country to work with orphan children whose parents are unable to care for them. For over 40 years she has traveled to Haiti at her own expense and… More

Professor Michel DeGraff is co-founder and co-director of the MIT-Haiti Initiative for improving education in Haiti through strategic use of digital and non-digital resources in Kreyòl for active learning. The MIT-Haiti Initiative, through a constructive intersection between linguistics and education… More

Mina Para Matlon is an arts organizer, researcher, attorney, artist, and cultural equity advocate. Inspired by the spatial and temporal bridge building work of traditional knowledge bearers, Matlon’s research interests lie in the intersecting areas between arts and community development… More

Cherice Harrison-Nelson is an educator, narrative, visual and performance artist, and arts administrator. As the co-founder and curator of the former Mardi Gras Indian Hall of Fame, she was the co-editor of 11 publications and coordinated numerous exhibitions and panel discussions focused… More

Romo (they/them/their) is a first-generation Xicanx doctoral student in Cultural Foundations of Education (CFE) at Syracuse University. They are the co-president of the School of Education (SOE) Council and the executive board member/PAGE Co-Director of Imagining America… More

Dr. Webb is the Associate Clinical Director and Chief Operating Officer at EXCELth, INC, responsible for day to day operations of healthcare centers and facilities. She also develops special projects and health programs including fund procurement, planning, implementation and oversight responsibilities… More

Spirit McIntyre (spirit/they/them) is a Cellist, Vocalist, Lyricist, Wellness Advocate, Sound Healer, Reiki Practitioner, and Compassionate Facilitator — promoting empowerment and healing by any medium necessary. Spirit believes in: the importance of breath, the power of deep listening… More

Stacey Sutton is an Associate Professor in Urban Planning and Policy at the University of Illinois Chicago and the Faculty Liaison in the Social Justice Initiative. Her scholarly interests lie at the intersection of race, place, and self-determination, principally focusing on worker-owned cooperatives and… More

More than a poet, more than a singer, more than an emcee–it’s not just what she says; it’s how she says it. Emerging from the musical womb that is New Orleans, artist and visionary Sunni Patterson combines the heritage and tradition of her native town with an enlightened modern world view to create music and poetry… More

Tarriona Michelle Ball (aka Tarriona Tank Ball) is cool. That’s it. She’s the person you want to be your friend. Aside from being a nationally award-winning poet, decorated singer, and once or twice theatre performer, she is pretty much the girl you should go out to eat with… More

Trina Van Schyndel is the Membership Director for Imagining America, and she also coordinates the Joy of Giving Something (JGS) Fellows program. She comes to IA with extensive experience in higher education settings, including community-engaged learning and… More