health healing and care Speakers
Andrea freeman
AUTHOR | LAW PROFESSOR | FULBRIGHT SCHOLAR | food oppression scholar
Andrea pioneered the theory of food oppression, which examines how food law and policy, influenced by corporate interests, disproportionately harms marginalized communities, and authored Ruin Their Crops on the Ground: The Politics of Food in the United States, from the Trail of Tears to School Lunch.
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.”
Matthew Salesses
Leading Voice on Writing + Bestselling Novelist + Workshop Visionary + Asian American Cultural Critic
Matthew’s forthcoming To Grieve Is To Carry Another Time is a stunning, thought-provoking meditation on what grief can offer the grieving, illuminating the way to embracing yourself, finding your community, and even loving and changing the world.
LEE HAWKINS
Pulitzer Prize Finalist Journalist and Author | 19-years at WSJ | Podcast Creator and Host
“Corporal punishment in schools was big in the Jim Crow era. And what I found in my research is that it continues to be legal in 17 states, and Black kids are hit at a disproportionately higher rate. You still see Black children beaten at disproportionately higher levels in schools in the former slavery states. It’s baked into the American culture.”
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.
jezz chung
Inclusive Wellness Advisor | Multidisciplinary Artist | Disability Advocate
Jezz gives talks on the power of disability & neurodivergence and how being neurodivergent affects their daily life and creative practices, along with tips to create more accessible, inclusive environments.
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.
RIMA VESELY-FLAD
Bestselling Author | Buddhist Scholar-Practitioner | Black Buddhist Studies Founder
Rima is the Founding Director of the Initiative for Black Buddhist Studies and a Visiting Affiliate Fellow at Princeton University. Her work explores how Buddhist teachings heal intergenerational trauma, thereby providing a vitally important foundation for Black liberation.
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. She speaks on topics of mental health, motherhood, and the black experience.
gloria muñoz
Multilingual Literacy Advocate | Award-winning Poet and YA Author |St. Pete's 1st Latina poet laureate
Gloria Muñoz is a Colombian American writer, translator, and advocate for multilingual literacy. Her other honors include an Academy of American Poets Poet Laureate Fellowship, Hedgebrook Fellowship, being a Macondista, Highlights Foundation’s Diverse Verse Fellowship, Lumina’s Multilingual Writing Award, and a part of Las Musas.
myisha cherry
Director of emotion and society lab | PHILOSopher of emotion | resiliency coach
“I help people decode emotions, understand their wisdom, and unleash their power so that they can achieve personal and professional success.”
layla f. saad
New York Times and Sunday Times bestselling author | CEO of Become a Good Ancestor
Layla inspires and activates personal and collective change in the world. Her appearances are designed to help you become a good ancestor; to live and work in ways that leave a legacy of healing and liberation.