Background artwork: Daniel Lind Ramos, "VICTORIA EN COSTA SERENA" (2010) - Charcoal on canvas
THE CONVERSATIONS
Thriving Beyond the Performative: A Community Plan for Small and Midsize Culturally Grounded Organizations
The Spirit, Principles and Power that Built Our Community Cultural Organizations: The Elders Speak
“Everyone has the right to freely participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits.”
Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Article 27, Section 1)
The overwhelmingly positive response to our Achieving Cultural Equity Survey has motivated us to embark on another necessary and critical step. A conversation series set in this historical moment that requires our being present in designing and implementing an equity framework ensuring racial and civil rights for us all.
Our four-part series, CONVERSATIONS ON CULTURE: RACE, ART, MYTH = JUSTICE focuses on critical issues affecting the lives and well-being of our communities and institutions. Marta Moreno Vega and a diverse group of thought and action influencers, designed conversations reflecting the nation’s racial, cultural, and innovative thought diversity.
As the inheritors of the liberatory movements engaged in the continued call for racial, economic, and social justice, now amplified by the MBLM, it is our commitment to continue engaging in the work to achieve racial, cultural, economic, and social justice for historically disenfranchised communities. It is imperative that we unite the racial and cultural spectrum of the nation’s movements that seek racial and social justice at all levels of our society to reach our objectives.
Independently and collectively we must ask ourselves – how are we defining our work, and more importantly, how is our work evolving at this moment?
These conversations explore the ways in which we continue to secure a future with global and national allies. They explore our past with our elder panel, our present with our panel on the new generation of activists and movements, and unifying our movements and power for action. They also explore new equitable funding frameworks and the legal pathway towards justice for all.
OUR OBJECTIVE IS ACTION
to affect positive change, eradicate the systemic injustices that continue to oppress and limit the possibilities of the majority of the nation’s Black, Afro Latin, Latinx, Native, Asian, LGBTTQ+/Two Spirit, People with Disabilities, and economically poor White communities is the objective. We are living in a critical moment in our history. The state of our organizations, the health and wellbeing of our communities, and the very fabric of our democracy is at stake. Join the conversation!
The MOMENT is NOW!
MEET THE PANELISTS
Amalia Mesa-Bains
Galeria de la Raza, former
board member, affiliated artist
Napoleon Jones Henderson
Artist, Black Arts Movement founding member
Jaune Quick–to–See Smith
Artist, Native American Movement, founding member
Margo Machida
Professor Emerita of Art History
and Asian American Studies
Alejandra Duque Cifuentes
Dance NYC from NYC
Amin Husain
Decolonize This Place,
from New York
Michelle Ramos
Alternate Roots Director,
from New Orleans
David Martine
Chiricahua Apache/Shinnecock-Montauk, Chairperson - AMERINDA
YK Hong
Anti-oppression trainer, speaker, organizer, and artist from New York
Ani Rivera
Executive Director,
Galería de la Raza, from
San Francisco, California
Kimi Mojica
Consulting Director for
Justice Funders,
from Oakland, California
Dudley Cocke
Former Director, Roadside Theater/Appalshop in Appalachia
Ashley Walden Davis
Founder and Executive Director Unlock Creative, LLC
Jeff Chang
Vice President, Race Forward; founding member The Cultural New Deal
Kate Fowler
Development Director,
Studio Two Three
María de León
Executive Director, NALAC, National Association of Latino Arts and Culture
Marian Taylor Brown, PhD.
Founder & Board Chair,
Arts Connect International
Alvin Starks
Director of the Equality Fund,
Open Society United States (OS-US)
Billy Ocasio
Executive Director, National Museum of Puerto Rican Arts and Culture
Gonzalo Casals
Commissioner of the NYC
Department of Cultural Affairs
Leticia Peguero
Vice President of Programs, Nathan Cummings Foundation
Margaret S. Morton
Director of Creativity and
Free Expression, Ford Foundation
Susan Taylor Batten
President and CEO, ABFE: A Philanthropic Partnership for Black Communities
Derecka Purnell
Human rights lawyer, writer,
and organizer
Juan Cartagena
President & General Counsel of LatinoJustice PRLDEF
Maricruz Rivera-Clemente
Executive Director COPI
(Corporación Piñones se Integra); cofounder, Corredor Afro
Monifa Bandele
Chief Equity and Strategy Officer at MomsRising, she co-leads a national on-the-ground and online grassroots organization of more than a million people working to achieve economic security and justice for moms, women, and families.
Lumumba Akinwole-Bandele
Father, husband, priest of Obatala, community organizer, and educator from Central Brooklyn.
Sandra Rodríguez-Cotto
Award-winning investigative journalist, author, correspondent, producer, and licensed Public Relations expert.
Juan González
Journalist, intellectual, author, Richard D. Heffner Professor of Communications and Public Policy at Rutgers University.
Sam Cruz
Associate Professor, Union Theological Seminary; Senior Pastor of Trinity Lutheran Church, Brooklyn.
Rosa Clemente
Black-Puerto Rican woman from the Bronx, NY. Organizer, producer, independent journalist, and scholar-activist.
Esmeralda Simmons Esq.
Founder and former director, The Center for Law and Social Justice, Medgar Evers College; Creative Justice Initiative Board Member.
Isis Rakia Mattei, Esq.
Principal, Mattei Law; Creative Justice Initiative Board Member.
Hy Thurman
Author of “Revolutionary Hillbilly: Notes from the Struggle on the Edge of the Rainbow”
José “Cha Cha” Jiménez
Founder of the Young Lords, a national human rights movement
Ray Santiesteban
Director, The First Rainbow Coalition
Jasmine Leeward
Activist, Narrative Strategist, and Emerging Filmmaker
Eli Jacobs-Fantauzzi
Co-founder, Defend Puerto Rico; Founder and Director of Fist-Up TV
Denise Oliver
Young Lords, and Black Panther Party
Madonna Thunderhawk
American Indian Movement
Tailinh Agoyo
Co-founder and director of We Are the Seeds of CultureTrust
Cliff Chambliss, III
Head Artist at TRINITY and works for the U.S. Copyright Office within the Library of Congress
Jonathan W. Soto
Community & political organizer, coalition builder.
Karl B. Rodney
Co-founder of New York CARIB NEWS.
Romero Rodríguez
Uruguay
David Comissiong
St. Vincent
Jesús “Chucho” García
Venezuela
Jorge Ramírez Reyna
Perú
Palmira Ríos
Puerto Rico
Humberto Brown
Panamá
Kali Akuno
United States
Christopher Cozier - Trinidad
Artist, living and working in Trinidad and a co-director of Alice Yard, a collective. Cozier investigates how Caribbean historical and current experiences can inform understandings of the wider contemporary world.
Nelson González - Aruba
Venezuelan Intellectual leak, before Chavez. Twenty years of a professional career in the Dutch Caribbean as a contemporary artist, producer, curator, teacher, and filmmaker. Lives and works in Aruba formally since 2003.
Sharelly Emanuelson - Dutch Caribbean
Filmmaker and visual artist based in Dutch-Caribbean. Through her lens-based work and audiovisual arrangements, she experiments with sight, sound, feeling, and thought to comprehend heritage in contemporary everyday life.
Simon Tatum - TN, USA
Artist, curator, art administrator, and writer. Tatum’s thesis showcase titled the Romantic Caribbean was featured at the Kent State University’s CVA gallery in March 2021.
Oneika Russell - Jamaica
Visual artist, art educator and cultural producer. She attended The Edna Manley College of the Visual & Performing Arts in Kingston, Jamaica from 1999 to 2003 where she completed a diploma in the Painting Department.
José Rodríguez (Ifa Name: Agboola)
Was born and raised in San Diego, CA to Puerto Rican and Ecuadorian parents.
After working for 11 years as a School Psychologist, he decided to dedicate his life to practice as an Awo full time in 2014.
Alexander LaSalle
Spiritual healer, musician, songwriter, proud father of his children and countless religious godchildren throughout the world. A recognized soulful Afro-Puerto Rican and Afro-Cuban singer. Alex is a master in the folkloric roots drum tradition known as Bomba.
State Senator Kevin S. Parker
A prominent New York State Legislator who is distinguished as a savvy strategist, brilliant intellectual and an elder statesman. Also an experienced educator, Parker has been a professor of both African-American Studies and Political Science at several CUNY and SUNY colleges.
José Arturo Ballester Panelli
Afro-Caribbean artist based in Puerto Rico. Most of his work for the past 20 years explores the connections between photography, Afro-Caribbean aesthetics, history, and the racial, social, and ecological systems in the Caribbean and its diasporas.
Diógenes Ballester
A visual artist, educator, and writer. His function as an artist is like that of an archeologist: to discover, investigate, extrapolate meaning from, and offer reconfigured perspectives of the artifacts that have been left behind. His rich Puerto Rican cultural and familial heritage drives him to create.
Solagabde Popoola
Was born and raised in Lagos, Nigeria. Have been a Babalawo for 40 plus years. Married with children he continues to practice Ifa as a Babalawo and travels around the world giving lectures on various topics of the tradition along with giving readings, performing rituals and ceremonies, and initiations.
Paulo Bispo
Babalorisha (Head Priest) of Ile Oooosa Erin Mope in New York City. Has been heading a small Orisha community in New York City, for the past 45 years. He has participated with other Orisha communities for example the Cuban Lukumi, Nigerian Isese and Trinidadian Shango the Baptist.
Marcia Minter
Co-founder and Executive Director of Indigo Arts Alliance, a non-profit that is a Black led artist residency program providing Black and Brown artists from around the world a supportive environment in which to make new work, engage with community and build lasting relationships across generations.
Iya Oseye Mchawi
Yoruba priest of Obatala for 45 years, is a founding member and current executive director of the Omo Obatala Egbe, Inc. She is the founder and President of the Yoruba Society of Brooklyn, Inc.
Shantrelle P. Lewis
A United Nations Programme for People of African Descent Fellow, is a multi-hyphen creative and scholar who accesses multiple disciplines to help elucidate African Diasporic history, aesthetics, culture and spirituality. An initiated Lukumi Sango Priest. Also, a self-identifying Hoodooist.
Neyda Martinez Sierra
Associate Professor at The New School, is Interim Program Director of the Media Management Graduate Program within the School of Media Studies and co-director of the university-wide Impact Entrepreneurship Initiative. Founder and executive producer of Habana/Harlem®.
Gloriann Sacha Antonetty-Lebrón
Afro-Puerto Rican writer, communication strategist and activist; author of the book of poems Hebras and the children's book Negro, negrito. Antonetty-Lebrón is the founder and editor of Revista étnica, the first multimedia platform and magazine in Puerto Rico to make visible and positively represent Afro-Latino communities.
Manuela Arciniegas
Program Officer with the Ford Foundation’s Civic Engagement and Government team. She brings over 20 years of experience in the nonprofit racial justice sector building the leadership and power of youth from low-income communities.
Jochi Melero Ifádoñí Oshitolá (Babalawo)
Director, Cinematographer, and Photographer at Nostrom Moving Images. He is known for his inquisitive and frontal portraits/landscapes that show
a profound testimonial of understanding and connection with the world around him, as well as photographs in international publishings for
celebrities, architecture, fashion, food, fine art, landscape and environmental portraiture.
Angela Jorge-Quiñones
Associate Professor Emeritus, State University of New York at Old Westbury.
Zeno Millet
Born in Rio de Janeiro. As the son of Iyalorixá Cleusa Millet and grandson of Iyalorixá Mãe Menininha do Gantois, one of the legendary priestesses of Candomblé Nagô, Zeno is intimately familiar with African Brasilian spiritual traditions.
Rowland Abiodun
Professor of Art, the History of Art, and Black Studies at Amherst College, Amherst, Massachusetts.
Charles Daniel Dawson
Multi-talented artist, photographer, filmmaker, curator, arts administrator, consultant, and scholar.
John Mason
Leading, internationally noted scholar, educator, writer, poet, playwright, musician, composer, photographer, Yoruba religious art sculptor and installation artist, diviner and priest of Obatala initiated in 1970.
Nancy Raquel Mirabal
Historian who has published widely in the fields of Afro-diasporic, gentrification, and spatial studies. Associate Professor of American Studies and U.S. Latina/o Studies at the University of Maryland, College Park. Recipient of the Scholar in
Residence Fellowship, The Schomburg Center
for Research in Black Culture, New York
Public Library (2012-2013).
Ebenecer López Ruyol
Lawyer, writer, trade unionist, community leader, politician, cultural manager and president of the Anti-Racism Committee of the Puerto Rico Bar Association. One of the few historians who intertwines the historiography of the labor movement with the struggle for racial equity, a sense of identity, and the strengthening of Afro-Puerto Rican identity.
James R. Morgan III
Officer of the Most Worshipful Prince Hall Grand Lodge of the District of Columbia, and its Worshipful Grand Historian & Archivist since 2019. He is currently enrolled in the Morgan State
University School of Graduate Studies in pursuit of a Master’s Degree and works as a Consultant with both the International African American Museum
and the African American Civil War Museum.
Michael Manswell
Dancer, singer, choreographer, teaching artist, artist director, and Orisha devotee. As the Artistic Director of Something Positive, Inc., he has performed and presented lectures and workshops in dance, music, and traditional religious practices. Named as “Brooklyn’s Black Men of Distinction in 2000” and “Brooklyn’s Black Dance Kings 2010”.
Juan López Bauzá
Consecrated in Ifá in 1998 and has been a practicing Babalawo ever since. A renowned author, published in Caracas, Venezuela; Colombia and Puerto Rico. Winner of the Las Americas Festival de la Palabra Award, Pen Club of Puerto Rico and Letras Boricuas grant, sponsored by The Mellon Foundation and Flamboyan Foundation.
Chief Baba Neil Clarke
Award-winning master African-centered percussionist, educator, band leader, producer, and independent scholar. Introduced into Yoruba Orisa traditions since the age of 13. An Arts Educator since the 1970’s, honored with a Scholar-in-Residence Fellowship at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.
Lorelei Williams
Poet and philanthropic strategist. She currently serves as Executive Director of the Warner Music Group / Blavatnik Family Foundation Social Justice Fund. Has 15+ years experience advising non-profit and philanthropic organizations in the U.S., Brazil, and South Africa. Graduate of Yale and Harvard universities.
Ayoka Wiles
Philanthropist & Cultural Strategist. Leader of organizational and program development for arts, culture, education, youth development, and social justice organizations. Advocate of spiritually and
culturally centered organizations that support communities of the African Diaspora.
JOIN US LIVE
by accessing Creative Justice Initiative Facebook and Youtube pages
MEET THE MODERATORS
Lowery Sims
Curator, Arts Consultant, Curator Emerita at the Museum of Arts and Design
Amy Andrieux
Executive Director MoCADA (Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Art)
Melody Capote
Executive Director, Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute (CCCADI)
Neyda Martínez
Associate Professor, THE NEW SCHOOL; Producer, Decade of Fire
Olga Garay-English
Principal at OMGArtsplus; Founding Program Director for the Arts, Doris Duke Charitable Foundation
Olga Chapman-Rivera
Founder BRAAVE Tribu Collab, a people-centric and culturally focused marketing firm.
Tiffany Turner
Community activist in Columbus, MS, voting rights advocate and lead organizer of Performing Our Future
Esmeralda Simmons, Esq.
Founder and former director,
The Center for Law and Social Justice, Medgar Evers College
Ben Fink
Cultural worker, nationwide community organizer, ally, and bridge-builder across the cultural, religious, social, geographical, and political divide
Sasha Dees
Independent writer, curator, producer, and author of Entangled Species.
Isis Rakia Mattei, Esq.
Principal, Mattei Law; Creative Justice Initiative Board Member
Marangeli Mejía-Rabell
Q&A Facilitator:
Cultural organizer, producer, curator, and programmer centered on co-creation, and sector collaborations. CoFounder/Partner of AFROTAINO and Director of Philadelphia Latino Film Festival.
Jossianna Arroyo
Literary and cultural studies scholar who specializes in the analysis of Afro-Diasporic literatures and cultures in the Americas. Author of several novels and books like "Writing Secrecy in Caribbean Freemasonry" (Palgrave, 2013), an analysis of transnational, racial and colonial dimensions of Masonic encounters in the circum-Caribbean and the United States (1850-1898).
Marta Moreno Vega
Scholar, producer, activist, educator, author, professor, and Yoruba priestess. Second Director of El Museo del Barrio, Founder of Caribbean Cultural Center and African Diaspora Institute (CCCADI), Founder Creative Justice Initiative (CJI), and Co-founder Corredor Afro.
Kate Fowler
Development Director, Studio Two Three; Member, Southern Arts, and Culture Coalition
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by accessing Creative Justice Initiative Facebook and Youtube pages
FUNDED BY
