Youth, educators, communities, scholars, activists, JOIN US for our launch event:
Black at the Center. Because anti-Blackness lives at the core of racial injustice.
To Learn More, Watch HERE.
Accessibility:
The Center for Racial Justice and Youth Engaged Research strives to provide the greatest scope of accessibility possible for its stakeholders and participants. As such, our team has worked to ensure that our content is consistent with current ADA standards for web pages and our launch. For our launch event specifically, we are able to provide ASL interpretation, compatibility with accessible web extensions for ease of visual use, as well as language translation to the best of our availability. If you have an accessibility need not covered by the scope of these offerings, we welcome your feedback and would love to hear how we can better support you. We recognize that in its broad scope, accessibility can always be expanded upon, and we commit to the changes that are necessary in order to provide the most valuable experience for our audience as possible.
The Racial Healing Collective:
The Island in the Middle of the Sea- An Afro-futurist Story Game
(BIPOC youth affinity space)*
*This session is exclusively for BIPOC youth
In this youth-only session, we will play an interactive story-game that helps us to explore the impacts of settler colonialism and racial capitalism on our communities. This session is most suited for youth ages 11-17. This session will be followed by a brief informational about the Racial Healing Collective, a youth program through the Center of Racial Justice and Youth-Engaged Leadership.
The Racial Healing Collective:
Racial Healing in the time of COVID-19
(BIPOC adult allies affinity space)*
* This session is exclusively for BIPOC adults who work with youth
This session is for self-identified BIPOC adult allies who are interested in learning more about the Racial Healing Collective through the Center of Racial Justice and Youth-Engaged Research. We will explore the creation and implementation of the program, as well as its commitments to youth-led resistance projects.
Join other white educators who are invested in dismantling white supremacy in education to explore three strands: internal work, retraining harmful white behavior, and taking concrete action. In this session, participants will reflect on where they need to put more energy and will have the opportunity to dive deeper into one facet of this model.
Just Experience LLC Founder
Justis Lopez (also known as DJ Faro) is the founder and Chief Enthusiasm Officer (CEO) of Just Experience LLC, a start up company that strives to educate, entertain and empower communities across the world. As a community organizer he focuses on ways to create spaces of radical joy, justice & possibility through the arts. He is currently an adjunct professor at Stephen F. Austin University teaching multicultural education and strategic project consultant at the Council for Opportunity in Education where he focuses on supporting national efforts for first generation, low-income college students apart of the TRIO federal programs. In addition to this role he also serves as a culture, climate, and equity consultant for various school districts across the country. Before this role he was a social studies teacher in the Bronx and a guest lecturer at Teachers College, Columbia University focusing on incorporating hip-hop as a pedagogical practice in schools. When Justis isn’t teaching he can be found DJing or dancing down the street. He enjoys long hikes, funfetti cupcakes, and long walks on the beach.
Shawn Ginwright, PhD is one of the nation’s leading innovators, provocateurs, and thought leaders on African American youth, youth activism, and youth development. He is Professor of Education in the Africana Studies Department and a Senior Research Associate at San Francisco State University. His research examines the ways in which youth in urban communities navigate through the constraints of poverty and struggle to create equality and justice in their schools and communities.
Dr. Ginwright is Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Flourish Agenda, Inc., a national nonprofit consulting firm, whose mission is to design strategies that unlock the power of healing and engage youth of color and adult allies in transforming their schools and communities.
In 2011, he was awarded the prestigious Fulbright Senior Specialist award from the State Department for his outstanding research and work with urban youth. Dr. Ginwright is the author of “Hope and Healing in Urban Education: How Activists and Teachers are Reclaiming Matters of the Heart”, “Black in School- Afrocentric Reform, Black Youth and the Promise of Hip-Hop Culture” and co-editor of” Beyond Resistance!: Youth Resistance and Community Change: New Democratic Possibilities for Practice and Policy for America's Youth” and in 2010 he published “Black Youth Rising, Activism and Radical Healing in Urban America”.
Dr. Ginwright currently serves as Chairman of the Board for the California Endowment, with oversight of a $3 billion endowment to improve the health of California’s underserved communities. He also serves on the Advisory Board for the Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning at the Jonathan Tisch College of Citizenship and Public Service at Tuffs University. Dr, Ginwright lives in Oakland, CA with his lovely wife and is currently an empty-nester—both children are in college.
James Beard Award-Winning Chef Bryant Terry will facilitate a live cooking demonstration woven with food justice commentary. Pull up with your ingredients ready!
Ingredient List:
3 Tbls coconut oil
5 Tbls maple syrup
1/2 tsp cinnamon
3 cups diced just-ripe bananas
1 1/2 cups yellow cornmeal
1/2 cup whole wheat pastry flour
2 Tbls finely ground golden flaxseeds
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp fine sea salt
2 1/2 cups date-sweetened almond milk
1/2 cup pecans, toasted and chopped
(optional: mango-maple syrup and sweet orange blossom cream for serving)
Esther O. Ohito, Ed.D. is an Assistant Professor of Curriculum Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She is a Toni Morrison Faculty Fellow for the Center of Racial Justice and Youth Engaged Research. Dr. Ohito specializes in curriculum studies, Black studies, teacher education, and feminist-oriented qualitative research. She began her education career in 2004 as an elementary and secondary public school teacher in Chicago, IL. This is the hyper-segregated setting where her curiosity about curricula and pedagogies that attend to questions of justice and knowledge production vis-à-vis dilemmas of Blackness, race, and gender was piqued. She has since investigated related questions while serving as a faculty member and administrator at a range of schools and institutions.
Dr. Bettina L. Love is an award-winning author and the Athletic Association Endowed Professor at the University of Georgia. She is one of the field’s most esteemed educational researchers. Her writing, research, teaching, and activism meet at the intersection of race, education, abolition, and Black joy. Dr. Love is concerned with how educators working with parents and communities can build communal, civically engaged schools rooted in Abolitionist Teaching with the goal of intersectional social justice for equitable classrooms that love and affirm Black and Brown children. In 2020, Dr. Love co-founded the Abolitionist Teaching Network (ATN). ATN’s mission is simple: develop and support teachers and parents to fight injustice within their schools and communities. In 2020, Dr. Love was also named a member of the Old 4th Ward Economic Security Task Force with the Atlanta City Council.
She is the author of the books We Want to Do More Than Survive: Abolitionist Teaching and the Pursuit of Educational Freedom and Hip Hop’s Li’l Sistas Speak: Negotiating Hip Hop Identities and Politics in the New South. Her work has appeared in numerous books and journals, including the English Journal, Urban Education, The Urban Review, and the Journal of LGBT Youth.
Dr. Cynthia B. Dillard (Nana Mansa II of Mpeasem, Ghana, West Africa) is the Mary Frances Early Professor of Teacher Education in the Department of Educational Theory and Practice at The University of Georgia. Her research interests include critical teacher education, spirituality in education, and African/African American feminist studies. Beyond numerous published articles, book chapters, and scholarly presentations across the globe, two of her books, On spiritual strivings: Transforming an African American woman’s academic life (SUNY Press, 2006) and Learning to (re)member the things we’ve learned to forget: Endarkened feminisms, spirituality and the sacred nature of research (Peter Lang, 2012) were selected as Critics’ Choice Book Award winners by the American Educational Studies Association (AESA). Her fourth book, The spirit of our work: Black women teachers (re)member will be published in Fall, 2021 with Beacon
Press. In addition to receiving numerous awards for her teaching, research and service, Dr. Dillard was awarded the prestigious Taylor and Francis AESA Lifetime Achievement Award in 2019. She is also the recipient of the 2012 AERA
Distinguished Contributions to Gender Equity in Education Research Award, given for her distinguished research and practices that advance public understanding of gender in education and received the Division G Henry T. Trueba Award at the 2016 AERA annual meeting. This prestigious award honors a researcher whose scholarship and teaching has led to the transformation of the social context of education. Dr. Dillard is also the Director of the University of Georgia’s Ghana Study Abroad in Education Program and has founded and directs a preschool and elementary school in Mpeasem (M-pee-a-sem) in the Central Region of Ghana, West Africa. There, she also holds the distinct honor of being enstooled as Queen Mother of Development (Nkosua Ohemaa) for the village, an esteemed lifetime leadership position within the community. She also offers numerous and popular
retreats to Ghana, West Africa through her small business, Full Circle Retreats Ghana. In addition, Dr. Dillard serves as the Executive Director and President of GIVE.BUILD.SHARE, a nonprofit organization designed to support educational opportunities for children and families by building schools in Ghana.
Chef BRYANT TERRY
Bryant Terry is a James Beard Award-winning chef, educator, and author renowned for his activism to create a healthy, just, and sustainable food system. Since 2015 he has been the Chef-in-Residence at the Museum of the African Diaspora (MoAD) in San Francisco where he creates public programming at the intersection of food, farming, health, activism, art, culture, and the African Diaspora. In regard to his work, Bryant’s mentor Alice Waters says, “Bryant Terry knows that good food should be an everyday right and not a privilege.” San Francisco Magazine included Bryant among 11 Smartest People in the Bay Area Food Scene, and Fast Company named him one of 9 People Who Are Changing the Future of Food.
Youth Activism Panel featuring: Meera Dasgupta, National Youth Poet Laureate; Aaliyah Zoe Hall of Dreamland with Aaliyah; Shivani Parmar, Local youth activist and facilitator; Anna Dyjach, Local youth activist and facilitator; Clynet Collins, Local youth activist; and Soraya Iman Chanterelle, Local youth activist.
In this panel discussion, youth will share the power of their youth activism through social media, spoken word, intergroup dialogue, and hip hop culture.
Hip Hop innovator, Toni Blackman, believes now more than ever we need tools that will help relieve the pressure in our lives. She has created a transformative musical experience that challenges the definition of meditation. Meditation and mindfulness practices not only help us chill out but improves memory, focus, and overall well-being. Her workshop focuses on the ways spoken word/rap poetry and elements of the Hip Hop aesthetic can be used for personal growth and development.
Join educators/activists/authors/mamas boys Ryan Parker and Justis Lopez as they take you on a journey through hip hop meditation and hip hop creation all while centering joy as a form of resistance. In this safe space workshop folx will be invited to bring their full selves and engage in building community, learning about #Happyvism and the significance of centering and valuing joy, sharing what brings them joy and creating and amplifying their very own hip hop joy anthem. Let’s get it!!!!!
Meera Dasgupta is the youngest United States Youth Poet Laureate appointed in the history of the country. She is also the first U.S. Youth Poet Laureate to have been appointed from New York (as well as the Northeastern region) and the first Asian-American Youth Poet Laureate of the United States, a program pioneered by Urban Word NYC. Born in Queens, she is a fierce advocate for student voice and gender equality, having worked throughout the city on various projects in order to empower young women and to increase civic engagement within other students her age. A Van Lier Fellow, Federal Hall Fellow, Climate Speaks Winner, & Scholastic Arts and Writing Winner, she has performed at the
Apollo Theater, the Rotary Peace Fellowship Alumni Association's
inaugural Global Cyber Peace Conference, the United State of Young Women, and more. Meera has facilitated poetry workshops for Apple, been featured in Poets & Writers Magazine, and has been
profiled in a New York City ad campaign for her work around climate advocacy. Meera is presently a senior at Stuyvesant High School and hopes to continue to utilize the intersection between social justice and poetry to uplift the voices of historically underrepresented
communities.
Soraya Chanterelle is a 16 year old high school senior. Over the years, she has become increasingly more engaged in social justice and equity work. She is part of her school’s Youth Equity Squad and her district's Equity Team, both of which work to bring race education and equity to the school system. She also is a member of Paper Voices Poetry, and frequently shares her poems at protests.
My name is Shivani Parmar and I am a freshman at Hopkins Academy in Hadley, MA. I am a volunteer for Akshaya Patra, a non-profit organization striving to eliminate classroom hunger, and supporting the right of socio-economic disadvantaged children to have an education, in India and other developing countries. I am also part of Project 351, a community of youth leaders and partners who unite in service to work on projects that address the consequences of poverty, and social justice issues.
My name is Anna Dyjach and I am a freshman at Hopkins Academy in Hadley, Massachusetts. I volunteer at my church, St. Patricks South Hadley, as well as tutor young children. I am also made aware of and participate in various opportunities to help my community through my membership in the Key Club International at my school. I am currently active in my community through Girl Scouts Troupe 11610 and through the Diversity Club at my school. Because of the pandemic, we are currently bringing attention to change through online presentations including Women's Health and Harsh Cultural Practices, Wampanoag Land Issues, China Internment Camps, Black Lives Matter, and the US Border Camps.
On March 30, 2020 Aaliyah Hall, who was 9 years old at the time, started a remote learning project in the form of a virtual storytime series called Dreamland with Aaliyah. The live broadcast takes place in SisterStudios, which was created as a home studio by Aaliyah and her younger sister Ava. This all started because Aaliyah was disappointed that so many things were being canceled during the quarantine last Spring. She wanted to give children and their grownups something to look forward to everyday that wouldn’t be canceled. And Ava, as an emerging kindergarten reader, wanted to support her sister in creating something fun! So Aaliyah went LIVE daily for six months (EVERY DAY!) from March 30-September 30. She read more than 200+ books and raised over $10K for nonprofits (Moms of Black Boys United for Social Change, No Kid Hungry, the Holyoke Children's Museum and the Loveland Foundation). She now has a YouTube channel and does a live story every Sunday evening on Facebook at 7:00 ET and special series events on her YouTube channel, most recently celebrating Kwanzaa, Black History Month and Women's History Month. She chooses her own topics and they are always focused on #BlackLivesMatter #OwnVoices and #representationmatters.
Also, Aaliyah has also been featured as part of syllabi and keynotes, often being compared to literacy advocates like Marley Diaz and Levar Burton. She was also named a nationwide Hometown Hero by HuluFrog and an MLK Changemaker by Tinkergarten. Aaliyah’s work has been spotlighted on several local news affiliates such as CT Live, Mass Live, NBC Western MA news, the Springfield Republican Newspaper, Harlem Community News, 1010 Wins, as well as the Drew Barrymore Show, the NBC Universal Snapchat program “Stay Tuned,” and NPR. Aaliyah also had small cameos; first in a music video by Nancy Wilson from the music group Heart and second in the HBO Special Between the World & Me. But perhaps the most exciting headline from this year is that Aaliyah was named in top 50 finalists for the first ever Time Magazine and Nickelodeon Kid of the Year. As a result, Aaliyah was invited to participate in the Nickelodeon Kid of the Year televised special, hosted by Trevor Noah, which appeared on all the Nickelodeon platforms, CBS, and Comedy Central in December 2020.
Facebook: @aaliyahsdream;
• on Instagram: @dreamlandaaliyah;
• on YouTube: www.tinyurl.com/dreamlandYouTube;
Toni Blackman, the first U.S. Hip Hop Ambassador with the U.S. Department of State, has traveled to 48 countries speaking, teaching and performing. This rapper/poet, director, and producer, received fellowships from Echoing Green Foundation, OSI and recently served as a Visiting Scholar at NYU. Highly respected for her Hip Hop Activism work as creator of Rhyme like a Girl and the Freestyle Union Cypher Workshop, Toni is a leading expert on Cypher. Her new book, Wisdom of the Cypher, will be released in 2021, along with her Hip Hop Meditation music series. She has two tv/video projects currently in development. Toni attended Howard University. Follow @toniblackman on social media and check out her YouTube series, “How to Freestyle.”
Ryan Parker's mission is to disrupt oppressive legacy embedded in educational spaces and to influence and empower educators and youth to also engage in the disruption.
Parker’s 19 year career in teaching has been dedicated towards challenging United States education norms, reimagining what school looks, sounds and feels like and applying that reimagination to his own pedagogy while influencing and supporting other educators to do the same.
A youth empowerment activist and district Race & Equity Coordinator who presents regularly at education conferences and various schools and universities abroad, Parker’s work focuses on race in education, the power of hip hop pedagogy and the necessity of centering black and brown youth amplifying their lived experiences, voices and brilliance! As the 2019-2022 Poet Laureate of Manchester, CT and the coach of the Manchester-based youth spoken word poetry slam team PaperVoices, Parker's work as a poet, educator and activist extends outside of the walls of his school building.
In addition to his work as an educator, Parker is a hip hop artist, author, husband, father, brother, mama’s boy, chocolate chip cookie lover and was named as one of the 2020 Peace Heroes of Connecticut.
Parker's most recent collection of poems are centered on his thoughts, feelings and freedom dreams attached to both the Covid 19 pandemic as well as the pandemic of racism that has always existed but is just now being highlighted, bolded and italicized for some.
Dr. Marcelle Haddix is Dean’s Professor and chair of the Reading and Language Arts department in the Syracuse University School of Education, where she is an inaugural co-Director of the Lender Center for Social Justice. She is the past president of the Literacy Research Association. She facilitates literacy programs for adolescent and adult communities in Syracuse, including the Writing Our Lives project for urban youth writers, the Breedlove Readers Book Club for middle and high school Black girls, and a Black women’s literary club and free library project. Dr. Haddix’s scholarly work is published in Research in the Teaching of English, English Education, Linguistics and Education, and Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy and in her book, Cultivating Racial and Linguistic Diversity in Literacy Teacher Education: Teachers Like Me, which received the 2018 Outstanding Book Award from the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education. Also known as the zenG, Dr. Haddix is a 500-hour certified registered yoga instructor who specializes in yoga and mindfulness for underrepresented groups and for community-based organizations with strong commitments to maternal health and food justice. She is co-founder of the Sankofa Reproductive Health and Healing Center and a founding member of the Café Sankofa Cooperative. Her community engaged approach to yoga, wellness, and healthy living culminates in yoga and writing retreats for women and couples of color, yoga and mindfulness workshops in urban school contexts, and regular yoga classes and sistercircles in her community. Follow her at @MarcelleHaddix and @zengangstayoga.
Dr .Chelsea Jackson Roberts is an internationally celebrated Peloton yoga teacher, scholar, and former lululemon global ambassador who is highly regarded as a leader in a new generation of yogis who are passionate about expanding the visibility of who is commonly seen as Teacher. Chelsea brings her deep Midwest roots to the mat with a style of yoga that is accessible to all bodies and levels of skill.
Chelsea has graced the cover of Yoga Journal twice and has been featured in countless media outlets that have highlighted her unique ability to articulate her love for yoga and meditation through service.
Widely recognized for her work with yoga and teens, and making connections between literacy development, storytelling, and yoga, Chelsea founded Yoga, Literature, and Art Camp at Spelman College Museum of Fine Art in 2014 after receiving her doctorate in Educational Studies from Emory University.
Chelsea has toured the world as global yoga ambassador for lululemon and advocated for local communities as founder of Red Clay Yoga and faculty member of Off the Mat, Into the World.
Since 2002, Chelsea has honed her style of yoga that blends contemporary hip-hop, electronic, and R&B with asana. An expert in slow-flow and restorative yoga, Chelsea prides herself in creating classes that leave her students with a strong sense of belonging and accomplishment.
Chelsea’s smile is infectious and her patient yet inspirational tone adds to her magic, a spell that deepens connections and calls her students into action.
UMass Amherst’s Center of Racial Justice and Youth Engaged Research (CRJ) centers Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) in the work of racial and educational justice.
True to our unwaverin' commitment to racial justice and youth voice in education, our family (a.k.a. we all play cousins around here!) of youth, educators, faculty, and community members engage in research and social action that contribute to intersectional liberation and tangible change across all educational contexts.
Keisha Green is an Assistant Professor of Teacher Education & School Improvement. She is a community-engaged scholar and critical teacher educator with research interests in English Education, youth literacy practices, critical literacy, and critical pedagogy. Dr. Green is published in journals including International Journal for Qualitative Studies; Equity & Excellence in Education; Race, Ethnicity, and Education; and Educational Forum. She has authored chapters in edited volumes including Humanizing Research: Decolonizing Qualitative Inquiry with Youth and Communities and Youth Voices, Public Spaces, and Civic Engagement. Dr. Green currently serves as an Assistant Professor of Teacher Education and Curriculum Studies at UMass Amherst College of Education, where she is the co-founder and co-director of the Center of Racial Justice and Youth Engaged Research and co-editor of the highly acclaimed journal of Equity & Excellence in Education. Dr. Green also serves as a consultant for area educational institutions supporting their diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts.
@green.keisha
Jamila Lyiscott a.k.a 'Dr. J' is an Assistant Professor of Social Justice Education. Her community-engaged research focuses on racial equity, youth activism, and the power of hip-hop and spoken word in education. Jamila is a community-engaged scholar, nationally renowned speaker, and the author of Black Appetite. White Food: Issues of Race, Voice, and Justice Within and Beyond the Classroom. She serves as an Assistant Professor of Social Justice Education at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where she is the founding co-director of the Center of Racial Justice and Youth Engaged Research. She also serves as a co-Editor-in-Chief of the highly reputed Equity & Excellence in Education journal. Her scholarship and activism work together to explore, assert, and defend the value of Black life throughout and beyond the field of education. Jamila’s current research focuses on the power of youth-led social research and activism to foster liberation and racial healing across schools and communities. Her scholarship has been published in several peer reviewed journals including, Review of Research in Education, Action Research, the Urban Review, and the New Educator, as well as several book chapters. She is most well known for being featured on Ted.com where her video, 3 Ways to Speak English, was viewed over 4.8 million times.
@jamila_lyiscott