Cultural heritage Speakers
Our speakers are acclaimed historians, authors, artists, and cultural leaders who bring history to life and deepen audiences' understanding of the people, movements, and traditions that have shaped our world. Through compelling storytelling and lived experience, they explore culture, identity, resilience, and belonging while connecting the lessons of the past to the challenges and opportunities of today. They don't just celebrate cultural heritage—they inspire meaningful dialogue, foster inclusion, and encourage audiences to engage more thoughtfully with one another.
Black History Month Speakers
joel christian gill
Award-winning, Bestselling Cartoonist and Illustrator | National Advocate for Sharing Stories
Artist and educator Joel Christian Gill is an award-winning cartoonist, historian, and author who has dedicated his life to creating stories to build connections with readers through empathy, compassion and, ultimately, humanity.
Jamilah Pitts
Social Entrepreneur and Leading Voice in Liberatory Education and Community Repair
“I am the founder of two companies designed to support liberation, intergenerational healing and holistic development of communities of color through an emphasis on education and wellness. Let’s move toward liberation together.”
Danyel Smith
Award-winning music journalist | Producer | Former Editor-in-Chief of VIBE
“Danyel is one of the nation’s most astute chroniclers of pop and hip-hop culture.” — The New Yorker
davarian baldwin
internationally recognized Black scholar, urbanist, cultural critic, and public advocate.
A foremost expert on Black social movements and African American history, Davarian consults on everything from the politics of reparations to the global impact of the Harlem Renaissance.
LEE HAWKINS
Pulitzer Prize Finalist Journalist and Author | 19-years at WSJ | Podcast Creator and Host
Lee is the host of a bold new financial podcast called Must Be the Moneyfeaturing candid conversations with athletes, entrepreneurs, investors, and creators about wealth, business, and economic empowerment.
Jasmine Brown
Doctor | Rhodes Scholar | Author of TWICE AS HARD, an invaluable history of black women physicians
Black women physicians’ stories have gone untold for far too long, leaving gaping holes in American medical history, in women’s history, and in black history. It’s time to set the record straight.
trevor baldwin
Cultural Curator + Literary Advocate + Baldwin Legacy Keeper
In 2014, for his uncle’s 90th anniversary, Trevor coordinated the street naming of "James Baldwin Place" on the Harlem block where Uncle Jimmy and all his siblings attended elementary school.
Brando Simeo Starkey
Groundbreaking Historian Fighting for Justice and Freedom from Caste | Law and Policy Expert
We can reform society with a focused framework. We often try to fight racial injustice with an anti-discrimination framework. Yet, to make real change, we need to expunge not discrimination but what I call castework.
BRIDGETT M. DAVIS
award-winning memoirist and Filmmaker + Journalist + Advocate
Bridgett’s moving memoir, Love, Rita, examines the vivacious life of her older sister Rita. It is full of joy and heartbreak, family history and American history, and uses Rita’s life as a lens to examine the persistent effects of racism in the lives of Black women.
hafizah augustus geter
Winner of the PEN Open Book Award and the Lambda Literary Award | A New Yorker Best Book of the Year
Through a unique combination of gripping memoir, history, political analysis, cultural criticism, and Afrofuturist thought, The Black Period explores her parents’ lessons on the art of Black revision to create a space for the beauty of Blackness, Islam, disability, and queerness to flourish.
Kai Harris
Storyteller Centering Black Women and Girls | Mental Health Advocate
Kai Harris is a writer and educator from Detroit, Michigan, who uses her voice to uplift the Black community through realistic fiction centered on the experiences of Black girls and Black women.
Allissa Richardson
AWARD-WINNING author + SCHOLAR OF RACE, MEDIA & AcTIVISM
Richardson is the author of Bearing Witness While Black: African Americans, Smartphones and the New Protest #Journalism. The book explores the lives of 15 mobile journalist-activists who have documented the Black Lives Matter movement using only their smartphones and Twitter.
Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) Heritage Month
ANNABELLE TOMETICH
Award-Winning Author | food writer | restaurant critic | journalist
The Mango Tree is a poignant and deceptively entertaining memoir of growing up as a mixed-race Filipina "nobody" in suburban Florida. Annabelle traces the roots of her upbringing from her erratic father's untimely death in a Fort Myers motel room and her fiery mother's bitter yearning for the country she left behind, to her own journey in the pursuit of belonging.
Matthew Salesses
Bestselling Novelist + Workshop Visionary + Asian American Cultural Critic
A leading voice on storytelling, Korean adoptee Matthew Salesses upends Western notions of creativity by challenging how the cultural values of those who created our processes inform the experience.
Priya Huq
Bangladeshi Texan comic artist
Priya speaks widely on issues related to the comics industry, art, race, culture, identity and their intersections. In her talks, Priya focuses on practical advice for marginalized artists and cartoonists.
Akemi Johnson
Mixed-Race Identity Storyteller | Acclaimed Journalist and Author | Descendant of Japanese American Incarceration Survivor
My grandfather renounced his U.S. citizenship alongside 5,000 other Japanese Americans after being incarcerated during WWII. I share his story and my own mixed-race multigenerational experiences because it cultivates community.
jezz chung
Inclusive Wellness Advisor | Multidisciplinary Artist | Disability Advocate | Author | Creative Career Coach
Jezz is a multidisciplinary artist whose work explores personal and collective change through the lens of race, gender, trauma, disability, and neurodivergence. They’ve been recognized internationally by Spain’s El País, Portugal’s Público, Vogue, Teen Vogue, Logo TV, and Made of Millions.
Hispanic Heritage Month Speakers
patricia engel
New York Times BestSelling and INTERNATIONALLY AWARD-WINNING NOVELIST
Born to Colombian parents and raised in New Jersey, Patricia has been awarded the John Dos Passos Prize for Literature, her books have been translated into many languages and selected as an NEA Big Read.
Gloria Muñoz
Multilingual Literacy Advocate | Award-winning Poet and Author |St. Pete's first Latina poet laureate
As a Colombian-American, I speak and write because I can; I have a voice in a world where many people do not. Through my stories, I aim to illuminate the spaces between circumstance, culture, and gender for you and your community.
Raquel Cepeda
Activist + Author + Filmmaker + Journalist
Award-winning journalist, cultural activist, podcaster, documentary filmmaker, and author, Raquel travels widely to speak to diverse audiences about Latina identity, social justice, gentrification and inequality.
Arab American Heritage Month
layla f. saad
Global Bestselling Author of Me & White Supremacy | Antiracist Leader and CEO | Neurodivergent Visionary
Layla is an East African, Arab, British, Black, Muslim woman who was born and grew up in the West, and lives in the Middle East. Her work is driven by her powerful desire to become a good ancestor; to live and work in ways that leave a legacy of healing and liberation for those who will come after she is gone.
susan abulhawa
Palestinian writer + human rights activist + poet + Essayist
Susan is one of the most widely-read Arab authors. A political commentator and contributor to broadcast news outlets, Susan Abulhawa speaks widely on the subjects of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the power of storytelling, particularly for marginalized communities.