Participant Biographies

Panel 1: Voices of Integration: Black Students from the Class of 1969

Moderator: Jacqueline Bridgeforth Williams

Panelists: Willis Potter, Troy Roots, Cynthia Druitt, Mary Ashlock

Jacqueline Bridgeforth Williams is the founder and director of The Village Initiative, a grassroots 501c3 organization focused on equity and racial justice in the school system. The Village Initiative engages in policy advocacy and outreach in the community to address the achievement gap and the disproportionate percentages of expulsion and suspension of minority youth which leads to the pipeline to prison. Her work for equity and racial justice in the Williamsburg-James City County Public Schools was recognized in 2020 with a commendation from the Virginia State Assembly and was recently featured in Essence magazine, alongside numerous local recognitions.

The second of eight children, Troy D. Roots spent his formative years in Williamsburg and was a member of the first fully integrated class to graduate from WJCCPS in 1969 and is also a 1973 graduate of Virginia State University with a BS degree in special education. He has been a special education teacher in Dinwiddie County Public Schools and Southside Virginia Training School in Petersburg. In 1978 he relocated to Washington, DC where he currently resides and has been a special education teacher and special education coordinator in public and private schools in Washington, D.C. He retired from DCPS in 2011. Roots is also a practicing Buddhist with SGI-USA and enjoys traveling, reading and photography.

Cynthia Dianne Druitt was born and raised in the Lightfoot community of Williamsburg-James City County, VA. She attended the Bruton Heights (1-7) and Berkeley Schools (8-11) before attending James Blair High School for her senior year as part of the first fully integrated graduating class in the Williamsburg-James City County Public Schools. She has taken a leadership role alongside her classmates to share their story of school integration through the digital exhibit Voices of Integration as part of the Local Black Histories Project. She attended Howard University and pursued a career at the Virginia Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services, Eastern State Hospital in Williamsburg, VA where she served as Medical Staff Services Supervisor and Medical Staff Coordinator for the Chief Medical Officer. She retired in October 2012 after 41 years. She is currently employed part-time at Summitt Behavioral Health/Williamsburg Place in Health Information Management. She has two sons and three grandsons.

Mary Bartlett Ashlock was born in Williamsburg, Virginia. She attended Bruton Heights School until 1967. In 1968, she attended Berkeley School before moving into the totally integrated James Blair High School in 1969. She has played a key role alongside her classmates to share their story of the first year of mandatory integration through the digital exhibit Voices of Integration as part of the Local Black Histories Project. She worked for 35 years in various occupations, including at Eastern Rehabilitation Center at Eastern State and Chesapeake and Potomac Telephone Company, which is now Verizon. After retiring in 2007, she moved to Georgia in 2011. While there, she volunteered for CASA (court appointed special advocate) for children who are wards of the state. In 2014, she relocated to West Point, Virginia. She also likes to read and sew.

Willis Potter received his B.A. Degree in Graphics Design from Norfolk State University. He was employed at the Chrysler Museum of Art for forty one years. For the first ten years, he held the position of Chief Preparator, which included care of the art collection, supervising the transporting and installation of framed painting, framed drawings, framed photographs and sculpture, throughout the museum. He later took on the position of Art Exhibition Designer, creating layout design for the museum art exhibits and supervising the construction and competition of all new gallery exhibits. His final position was Special Projects Manager, during which he was part of the team in charge of refurbishing the entire museum. His time at the museum also afforded him opportunities to travel throughout the USA and abroad (England, France, Germany and Australia). Mr. Potter also operated his own Art Preparation Business to support private collectors and smaller local museums, including The Barry Art Museum at Old Dominion University, Black College Museums at Hampton University and Virginia Union University, and local Churches that have artifacts in their buildings.

Panel 2: Education Stories of Twentieth Century Virginia

Moderator: Dr. Phyllis Slade Martin

Dr. Yvonne Smith-Jones, Mrs. Denise Burrell Smith, and Mrs. Brenda Jones Cotman, “Reclaiming the Gifts of the One-Room Schoolhouse in telling the Back Story of Black Political Activism in Charles City, Virginia”
- Dr. Yvonne Smith-Jones is a renowned educator and community/political activist focusing on coaching, leading and mentoring leaders. She is a founding member of Women Educational Leaders in Virginia, (WELV) and Black Women Educational Leaders, (BWEL). Mrs. Denise Burrell Smith is the longest serving Commission of Revenue in the Commonwealth of Virginia and Mrs. Brenda Jones Cotman was the Branch Manager of the oldest independent Black owned bank in America, Consolidated Bank &Trust Co. in Richmond, Virginia. These Black Political Activists were born and still live in Charles City, Virginia as receivers of the opportunities.
Valerie Alfisha Valentine, “The Birthday Cake (Short Story of Segregated School for Negro Students)”
- Born into a military family, Valerie Alfisha Valentine attended George Washington Carver and Lee Hall Elementary schools. She was the first African American female student to integrate Lee Hall Elementary School. She attended Warwick High School, but graduated Denbigh High School in 1969. She attended William & Mary summer school in 1972 and later went to Spelman College, earning a BA in Political Science. She took part in the Miss Hampton-Newport News Scholarship Pagaent in 1974. She retired from Johnson and Johnson Pharmaceutical Management in 2009. Her hobbies include travel, reading, pilates, baking, yoga, golf, ballet, and cycling.
Camilla Lewis Tramuel, “Early African American Education”
- Camilla is a native of the Plum Point Community in New Kent County, Virginia, and she currently resides in Yorktown. She is co-founder and President of the African American Heritage Society of New Kent (AAHS-NK) County, Chairperson for the Green vs. New Kent Committee, and former President of the New Kent Historical Society. She is author and publisher of the AAHS-NK Black History Newsletter, and is Church Historian for St. Luke Baptist Church, Plum Point. Her latest church project was to identify and record those buried in the church cemetery, with or without a headstone. She is co-author with LaVonne Patterson Allen for books on African American history in New Kent County. She is the eldest of ten children born to Raymond and Helen Poindexter Lewis of New Kent County. She graduated from New Kent High School in 1971, a 1998 graduate of Hampton University, and in 2010, received a master’s degree in Government Contracting from American Graduate University.

Panel 3: Preserving Legacies: Memorialization and Commemoration (Hybrid)

Moderator: Jessica Harris

Panelists: Nina Smith Polley, Star Reams, Karice Luck-Brimmer

Jessica Harris is a descendant of enslaved communities in Central Virginia, including those at Monticello and the University of Virginia. She is currently the Community Research Program Manager at the UVA Equity Center and board president for the Descendants of Enslaved Communities at UVA. She holds a Master’s in Educational Psychology from the University of Virginia, where she also earned an Interdisciplinary B.A. Since 2018, Jessica has served on UVA's Memorial to Enslaved Laborers Community Engagement Committee, and is also a member of the Monticello Young Advisors Council. An avid believer in using the arts for community impact, she is also the Founder and Artistic Director of Empowered Players, a 501(c)3 arts education nonprofit in Fluvanna, Virginia.

Nina Smith Polley, a descendant of enslaved communities in Central Virginia, including Pharsalia and Montezuma in Nelson County. Her advocacy extends to combating sexual and domestic violence, as well as championing women's empowerment. Inspired by community dialogues, Nina is dedicated to engaging public and private sectors in discussions about creating solutions to challenges faced by people of color. Nina currently serves on the boards of Many Voices, One Community, and the Descendants of Enslaved Communities at UVA. Past board roles include Treasurer and Finance Committee Chair for YWCA of Central Virginia, as well as contributions to the State of Virginia Nursing Scholarship Advisory Committee, Lynchburg Police Department’s Community Advisory Group, and Live Healthy Lynchburg Advisory Group. Nina's dedication to education, empowerment, and community building has led her to work in African American history museums and as a grant coordinator. Her focus on walkable spaces, efficient transportation, and healthy communities drives her to advocate for historical black farm restoration, social inclusion, economic growth, poverty reduction, and pollution mitigation.

Star Reams is a descendant of enslaved communities in Nelson County, Buckingham County, and Lynchburg, Virginia. Her journey into the world of genealogy began at an early age when she started listening to and researching the oral history passed down by her maternal grandparents. Star’s dedication to unearthing the past has led her to complete extensive genealogical research on the enslaved community in Nelson County, Virginia, particularly at Pharsalia. She is proud to be one of the founding members and Board Secretary of Descendants of Enslaved Communities (DEC) at the University of Virginia. Star attended Lynchburg City Public Schools and received a BBA in Business Management and MS in Human Resource Management from Strayer University.

Karice Luck-Brimmer is an Education & Community Initiatives program associate for Virginia Humanities. She works primarily in the Dan River Region, where she collaborates with local community members to sustain a strong network of cultural organizations committed to positive change. In her role, she also manages the General Assembly African American Cultural Resources Task Force. As a public historian with over 20 years of experience as a genealogist, she has done extensive genealogical research in the Pittsylvania County area. One of her current projects is the development of the Danville Research Center for African American History & Culture. The founding president of the Danville/Pittsylvania County Chapter of the Afro-American Historical &; Genealogical Society (AAHGS), she served on the Virginia Board of Historic Resources from 2019 to 2023. She has been featured in several publications and media outlets such as The Washington Post, People, and 60 Minutes. Luck-Brimmer is the owner of Our History Matters, LLC, an entity that provides heritage tours, historic preservation consulting, and genealogy services.

Panel 4: Designing for Racial Healing in Real Time: The Sewanee Praises Memorial Project

Moderator: Dr. Woody Register

Panelists: Laura Battaglia, Kevin Jones, Evelyn Patton

Woody Register is the founding director of the Roberson Project on Slavery, Race, and Reconciliation (2017) at the University of the South (better known as Sewanee), where he is Professor of History. The Roberson Project investigates Sewanee’s historic connections to slavery and its legacies and has launched an array of initiatives collecting, preserving, and sharing our town’s and region’s Black history.

Evelyn Patton chairs the St. Mark’s Community Association, which manages the community center in Sewanee’s historic Black neighborhood. She was born and grew up in Sewanee, graduated from the University of the South’s preparatory school, and today is Medical Office Senior Patient Coordinator for the University’s Wellness Center. She previously worked for Grundy and Franklin County 911 EMS services.

Laura Battaglia, AIA, is an Assistant Professor of Interior Design in the School of the Arts at Virginia Commonwealth University and has taught previously at Hampton University, North Carolina State University, and the Art Institute of Virginia Beach. An educator with over 20 years of professional experience in interior design and architecture, she values a comprehensive approach to design education that bridges research, practice, and creative exploration. Ms. Battaglia founded and directed Archi Camp – a summer camp that provides an intensive design course to local middle school students of color. She is owner of studiobattaglia, LLC and holds degrees from Cornell University and the University of Virginia.

Kevin Jones, AIA, is Associate Professor of Practice in the School of Architecture at Virginia Tech. He also is a practicing architect whose academic pursuits lie at the intersection of teaching, practice, and community engagement, and he has worked with both urban and rural communities on a variety of community-oriented impact design projects. His experience as a practitioner is diverse in type and scale and includes numerous adaptive reuse projects as well as housing, institutional, community, and cultural works. His design work has been recognized by the Preservation Virginia, the Urban Land Institute, and AIA Virginia, and he prefers white trace paper over yellow trace paper.

Panel 5: The Guardian’s Legacies of Enslavement Programme: Atoning in the Present for Injustices of the Past (Virtual)

Moderator: Ebony Riddell Bamber

Panelists: Dr. Cassandra Gooptar, Maya Wolfe-Robinson

Ebony Riddell Bamber is the programme director of the Scott Trust’s legacies of enslavement project. She has over 20 years experience in social justice advocacy; with expertise in human rights, gender-based violence and community engagement. Ebony has held senior roles in global advocacy coalitions, international NGOs and the UK public sector and is a professor of capoeira.

Dr. Cassandra Gooptar is an interdisciplinary researcher from Trinidad and Tobago whose main focus of research involves themes of slavery, colonialism and reparative justice. She is currently a Lecturer of Legacies of Slavery at the Wilberforce Institute, University of Hull. She conducts research exploring Britain’s legacies of slavery through institutional investigations to uncover their links with slavery. She was the lead researcher on uncovering the UK Guardian’s links with slavery and she is an Advisory Panel member of the Guardian’s Legacies of Enslavement Restorative Justice project. Cassandra is also co-lead on a collaborative reparative justice project entitled 'Bristol, Capital & Enslavement' at the University of Bristol and has conducted research both within the academic and heritage sector such as exploring Fulham Palace links with slavery as part of the ‘Bishop of London, Colonialism and Transatlantic Slavery’ project, the University of Dundee Founders Project in Scotland.

Maya Wolfe-Robinson has been a journalist at the Guardian for 13 years. She has covered legal affairs, worked as an editor on the op Ed desk, and as a correspondent, focusing on the north of England.

Panel 6: Resistance and Reclamation of Black Spaces

Moderator: Dr. Adrienne Petty

Halee Robinson, ““Begged me to make this apeal to you for there sake”: Incarcerated Black Women’s Social Worlds as Resistance to the Texas Prison System, 1883-1912” (Virtual)
- Halee Robinson is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of History at Princeton University. She currently works on the histories of race, freedom, citizenship, and the carceral state in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Her dissertation, tentatively titled “The Texas Penal System, Community, and the Meanings of Freedom and Citizenship, 1865-1912,” explores how Black, Mexican, and poor white folks increasingly came into contact with the Texas penal system after the Civil War. Focusing on Texas residents’ experiences with policing, courts, and state-sanctioned punishment, she examines how the penal system shaped meanings and contours of freedom, citizenship, and community across the state.
Benita L. Law-Diao, “Adirondacks: We Were Here, We Are Here, We Have Every Right to Be Here”
- Benita Law-Diao is a retired NYS Licensed Public Health Nutritionist/Dietitian, who has served as a Public Health Nutritionist, Contract Manager, and Program Research Specialist for 32 years of public health service with the NYS Dept. of Health, as well as several contracted positions with the US Dept. of Agriculture and the US Food and Drug Administration. Throughout her life she has had a passion for the environment and sustainable living, and has volunteered in disenfranchised communities to address health disparities in the environment by incorporating Black history in her programming. Governor Kathy Hochul appointed Benita the first African American to serve on the Board of the Adirondack Park Agency in 2021. Benita serves on the Boards of the John Brown Lives!, Adirondack Experience Museum, Adirondack Center for Loon Conservation, Champlain Hudson Power Express, Eagle Island Camp, Albany Riverfront Collaborative and Cornell Cooperative Extension of Albany County.
Faye "Consuela" Tinsley, “Transgenerational Trauma: Experiencing "Sarah Baartman" in Black and Brown Spaces”
- Faye Tinsley, "nacido y criao, embarrado con mantequilla, mezclao con azúcar, sazón y un montón de sazón" (born and bred with a mix of sugar, seasoning, and soul), is from Richmond, Virginia. She's the youngest daughter of Jonathan Tinsley and Dr. LaFonde Roberta Jones, and sister to Sean, Monique, and Sharif. Faye graduated from Virginia Union University with a BA in English Literature. She earned an M.Ed from Grand Canyon University and simultaneously secured an MBA from Howard University and attended Gould School of Law at USC. Now, she's a doctoral student in Higher Education Administration at The College of William and Mary. Highlighting her global exposure, Faye worked for H.R.H Sheikh Mansour Al Nayhan in Abu Dhabi and later with the Arabian Group for Education in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
Kilsa M. Benjamin, “Recalling the Past to Incant the Future”
- Kilsa M. Benjamin is a PhD candidate in English at Old Dominion University. Her research interests include topics of race, gender, ethnicity, culture, materiality and everyday life practices. Currently, Ms. Benjamin continues to work on academic research from a body of work which she began as an independent project entitled: “Negotiating Differences: Survival, Resistance and the New Mestizaje,” which she presented at the Tenth Annual Graduate Research Conference of the Department of Sociology and Equity Studies in Education at the University of Toronto.

Panel 7: From Brown to Green: Freedom of Choice and School Integration in Virginia; Firsthand Participants Tell Their Stories

Moderator: Dr. Brian J. Daugherity

Panelists: Rusty Curle, Anthony Green, Larry Woodson, Betty Burrell, Linda Holmes Taylor

Dr. Brian J. Daugherity is a Professor of History at Virginia Commonwealth University, and a scholar of school desegregation in Virginia. His books include With All Deliberate Speed: Implementing Brown v. Board of Education (2008); Keep On Keeping On: The NAACP and the Implementation of Brown v. Board of Education in Virginia (2016); and A Little Child Shall Lead Them: A Documentary Account of the Struggle for School Desegregation in Prince Edward County, Virginia (2019). He is a member of the Board of Directors and Vice President of the Virginia Forum, and co-chair of Desegregation of Virginia Education (DOVE).

Rusty Curle attended and graduated from the New Kent School. Coach at New Kent High School, 1973-1986.

Anthony Green was educated at the all-Black George W. Watkins school until his parents enrolled him in the formerly all-white New Kent School in 1965 when he entered the 4th grade. His parents were community leaders, and his father was the lead plaintiff in the Green v. New Kent County lawsuit.

Sylvia Hathaway was educated at the all-Black George W. Watkins school until her parents enrolled her in the formerly all-white New Kent School at age 13. Her parents were community leaders, and her father was a plaintiff in the Green v. New Kent County lawsuit.

Larry Woodson was educated at the all-Black George W. Watkins school until his parents enrolled him in the formerly all-white New Kent School in 1965 when he entered the 9th grade.

Panel 8: King Iron: Forging Identity Through the Untold Stories of the Iron Furnace Workers of Middle Tennessee

Panelists: Rachael A. Finch and Frederick Murphy

Rachael Finch is the principal of Engage Preservation Consulting, LLC, a female led cultural resource management firm based outside of Franklin, Tennessee, centered on grassroots community advocacy and strategic preservation and interpretive planning at historic sites and museums. Originally from New Orleans, Louisiana, Finch moved to Colorado where she received a BA in History and Political Science from Metropolitan State University of Denver, and then, to Tennessee where she received an MA in Public History with an emphasis on Historic Preservation, Cultural Resource Management, and Administration of Historic Organizations from Middle Tennessee State University. Throughout her career, Finch has served in leadership roles at nonprofit historic sites and museums, academia, and government. Finch serves on several boards including the Slave Dwelling Project, the Franklin Justice and Equity Coalition, and the Tennessee Preservation Trust.

Frederick Murphy is the founder of History Before Us, LLC, a project centered on capturing, preserving, and advocating for influential history. He was raised in Clarksville, Tennessee and is a graduate of Tennessee State University. His first film, the award-winning The American South as We Know It, explores the lives of survivors of Jim Crow—the courageous individuals who didn’t make the headlines. His second documentary, The Other Side of the Coin: Race, Generations & Reconciliation, was released on September 2, 2020. A collection of experiences and thoughts addressing the complexities of race in America, the film asks, “How do we reconcile for the sake of future generations and humanity?” Frederick is a Licensed Clinical Mental Health Counselor who finds joy in helping people achieve and retain an optimum level of functioning by focusing on their holistic health. He has a master’s degree in Transformative Leadership and serves on the board of the James K. Polk historic site in Pineville, North Carolina and the Slave Dwelling Project in Charleston, South Carolina.

Panel 9: Reclamation through Data-Informed Methods for Studying Slavery and Beyond

Moderator: Kristina Poznan

Panelists: Jazma Sutton, Grace Murry, Camilia Bell, Victorianna Mejia, Jadyn Evans

Jazma Sutton is an Assistant Professor of History at Miami University of Ohio and earned her PhD from the University of Indiana. Dr. Sutton’s research focuses on the histories of slavery and freedom in the U.S. with a particular interest in African American women’s history and the Midwest. She is currently working on a book project that chronicles Black women’s transition from slavery to freedom in antebellum Indiana and Ohio and the ways in which they expressed their ideas of citizenship through anti-slavery activism and material culture. She was a participant in Enslaved.org’s NEH Summer Institute on Data-Informed Methods in Slavery Studies.

Grace Murry is a PhD student at Cornell University in the department of Literatures in English. She graduated in May of 2023 from Loyola University Maryland with a bachelor's degree in English and a minor in African and African American Studies. Her undergraduate honors thesis is entitled “Bending to the Beat: The Hybrid Poetry of Rap.” Grace’s current research interests include African American literature, disability studies, media studies, and labor studies. She was a participant in Enslaved.org’s Summer Research Opportunity Program at the University of Maryland in 2022.

Camilia Bell recently graduated from Norfolk State University Summa Cum Laude with a Bachelor’s in History. Her academic research interests include African diaspora history, Black marronage, contemporary queer theory, and women’s and gender studies. She has worked with the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art, the Joseph Jenkins Roberts Center at Norfolk State University, and the Sold Down River Project to create a database for enslaved Black Virginian experiences. She is presently working as a Museum Interpreter for the Virginia Beach History Museums, researching and giving public tours of historical Virginian houses, and as a tutor. She aspires to earn a dual Master’s in Library and Information Science and Public History and work with cultural institutions in community engagement and education on initiatives that center multidimensional marginalized histories. She was a participant in Enslaved.org’s Summer Research Opportunity Program at the University of Maryland in 2023.

Victorianna Mejia and Jadyn Evans are Public History majors at St. Mary's University in San Antonio, Texas. Victorianna is a McNair Scholar and was a participant in Enslaved.org’s Summer Research Opportunity Program at the University of Maryland in 2022. Her research has primarily focused on the mistreatment, injustices, and religious influence used to suppress enslaved people before, during, and after the Civil War. She is currently focusing on Black Texas History and bringing awareness to neglected lives. Jadyn Evans is a proud individual of Black and Hispanic heritage. Her expertise ranges from Black San Antonio in the mid-20th century to antebellum Texas. Her research has resulted in local and national media coverage and a film produced for the "Westside Humanities Project." Upon graduation, Jadyn looks forward to contributing to an organization committed to helping the public discover the hidden histories of their communities.

Kristina Poznan is a Clinical Assistant Professor History at the University of Maryland, where she is the co-director of the Enslaved.org Summer Research Opportunity Program and managing editor of Enslaved.org’s Journal of Slavery and Data Preservation. She earned her PhD in History from William & Mary in 2019.

Panel 10: Reparative Work and the East Marshall Street Well Project

Moderator: Maggie Unverzagt Goddard, Ph.D.

Panelists: Olivia Washington, Rome Kamarouthu, Ana Edwards, Joe Jones, Daniel Sunshine

Ana Edwards is assistant professor in the Department of African American Studies at Virginia Commonwealth University and a public historian on the significance of “Gabriel's Rebellion” for free and enslaved Black life in Virginia. Through them, she examines the construction of the American nation, how these histories are articulated in public landscapes and why they resonate today. She holds a BA in visual arts and an MA in history. Edwards is married to Phil Wilayto, co-founder of the Defenders for Freedom, Justice & Equality, political organizer, journalist, author and editor of The Virginia Defender newspaper, now in its 19th year of publication. The Defenders’ Sacred Ground Historical Reclamation Project (2004) contributed to the reclamation of Richmond's first municipal African Burial Ground and led the campaign to establish a Memorial Park in Shockoe Bottom, the 19th century “epicenter” of the US domestic slave trade—now part of The Shockoe Project. Her advocacy work includes social justice through public history and preservation of African American spaces, especially pre and post emancipation burial places—among them Shockoe Bottom African Burial Ground, Shockoe Hill African Burying Ground, East Marshall Street Well Project, East End and Evergreen cemeteries.

Maggie Unverzagt Goddard, Ph.D. is a Postdoctoral Fellow in History at Virginia Commonwealth University and the Associate Director of VCU’s Health Humanities Lab. Her interdisciplinary research on the politics of aesthetics and memory work engages visual culture studies, public humanities, and critical theories of the body. With a background in public engagement and curation, she holds a PhD in American Studies and an MA in Public Humanities from Brown University.

Joseph Jones, Ph.D., is a biological anthropologist and research associate of the Institute for Historical Biology at William & Mary. His current research focuses on descendant community engagement and bioarchaeology at Jamestown and the historic First Baptist Church in Williamsburg, VA. He serves on the Family Representative Council and the Research Implementation Committee for the East Marshall Street Well Project. He is co-author of RACE: Are We So Different? (2020).

Rome Kamarouthu is a pre-law undergraduate research fellow at VCU's Health Humanities Lab majoring in Financial Technology and minoring in psychology. Previously with the lab, they developed an online educational module about mental health disparities in minoritized communities. This year, they are collaborating with the East Marshall Street Well Project on memorialization initiatives and to develop university policy for cultural and human remains.

Daniel Sunshine is a historian whose research centers race and power in 19th century Virginia. He is a postdoctoral fellow with the East Marshall Street Well Project, a partnership between Virginia Commonwealth University and a descendant community group working to repair racial injustice in Richmond. He is also an Associate Director of VCU’s Health Humanities Lab, which provides students with opportunities to engage with the work of the EMSW Project.

Olivia Washington is an undergraduate student at Virginia Commonwealth University earning a B.S. in Applied Psychology and Sociology. She is a member of the Virginia Department of Health Youth Advisory Council and a fellow at VCU’s Health Humanities Lab. She is passionate about policy reform and social determinants of health and hopes to attend graduate school to better learn how to incorporate social science into effective policy change.

Panel 11: Using Public History such as Markers and Statues to Heal Communities of Color

Panelists: Allison Thomas, Viola Baskerville, Bessida White, Lori Jackson Black

Viola Osborne Baskerville is a Richmond, Virginia native and graduate of the College of William and Mary. She earned her law degree from the University of Iowa, College of Law. Ms. Baskerville is a former member of the Richmond City Council, where she chaired its Land Use and Housing Committee. She also served on the City’s Planning Commission. She is a former Member of the Virginia General Assembly, House of Delegates and served as Secretary of Administration for the state from 2006-2010. During her 15 years in public office, she either put forward legislation regarding public monuments and historic markers, or facilitated their installation and dedication at the state and local level. Noteworthy projects she worked on include the Arthur Ashe Monument in Richmond, the Virginia Civil Rights Memorial at the state Capitol, the restoration and renovation of the Virginia State Capitol, Richmond City’s Reconciliation Statue, and a state historic marker for the Freedmen’s Bank. Currently she serves on the Board of the Virginia Outdoors Foundation, an organization dedicated to the preservation of public spaces.

Bessida Cauthorne White (B.S., J.D.), has been a genealogist for more than forty years. She is family historian for nine families and manages DNA results for more than forty persons. An independent community historian, she is co-founder and president of Middle Peninsula African-American Genealogical and Historical Society and a founder of Greater Richmond-AAHGS. White has presented at numerous state, regional, and national workshops and conferences, and teaches genealogy courses at Rappahannock Community College. Recently she has managed several descendant projects, including the identification of the enslaved at Menokin and Stratford Hall (both 18th century properties in Virginia’s Northern Neck) and their present-day descendants. White has directed the research and application process for multiple state historical highway markers that reference African Americans in Eastern Virginia, and presently has three markers at different stages of the application process. She is editor/co-editor of A Reunion of Recipes: The White Family Cookbook (1990), Help Yourself! There’s a God’s Mighty Plenty: A Treasury of Recipes from the Cauthorne & Brooks Families (First Edition 2000, Second Edition 2017), and Gather at the Welcome Table: The Angel Visit Baptist Church Sesquicentennial Cookbook (2016).

Lori Jackson Black founded the non-profit group Preservation Mathews in 2016 and spearheaded the Gwynn’s Island Historic District project, which included working on the architectural survey of the island and co-authoring the National Register of Historic Places nomination form. Ms. Black currently works for the Fairfield Foundation as a historian and genealogist. She completed the Library Services- Genealogy program at Monterey Peninsula College and received a BA in History from Columbia College and an MA in History with a concentration in Public History from American Military University. Ms. Black has worked as a professional genealogist and historian since 2006, doing contract work that ranged from private individuals to Fortune 500 companies.

Allison Thomas descends from enslavers and land thieves in colonial Virginia back to the early 1600s. She is currently writing a book about reckoning with her family legacy and reparations. Allison volunteers for Coming to the Table, a national organization that seeks to heal the racial wounds of the past from slavery and the many forms of racism it spawned, including serving on the Linked Descendants planning team, co-managing the BitterSweet blog, and managing the Linked Descendants Writing Program. She also volunteers with the Neighborhood Justice Project, a diversion program for first-time misdemeanor offenders in the Los Angeles City Attorney's office.

Professionally, Allison is an established film and theater producer. She also produced the movies “Seabiscuit,” “The Tale of Despereaux,” and “Pleasantville.”

Panel 12: Taking Up Space and Finding Joy in Life, Culture, and Art

Moderator: Ramona R. Chapman

Dr. Lisa Winn Bryan, “The 1% Percenters: Cultivating African American Preservationists”
- Dr. Lisa Winn Bryan has dedicated her career to higher education administration at colleges and universities throughout Virginia: JMU, VCU, VSU, VUU and Mary Baldwin University. She is a student affairs professional with over 20 years of experience. She is a strong proponent of Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and recognizes the direct impact that these historic spaces have on the Black community. Other areas of research and interest include historic preservation, community engagement, genealogy, African American Studies, and the history of the enslaved. Winn Bryan’s primary academic objective is to examine and address the systematic barriers that impact communities of color in America, particularly the Black and Native American communities. “I want to encourage students to be courageous and consider the very difficult conversations that we all need to have around race and racism in this country.” Winn Bryan received her a BA and MEd from JMU and a BA and EdD from VCU.
Dr. Najmah Thomas, “Farming is Hot: Cultivating the Next Generation of Freedom Farmers”
- Najmah Thomas is a daughter of the Gullah Geechee community on St. Helena Island, SC – which is to say she is a descendant of people who were committed to maintaining African cultural traditions while helping to form a more perfect union here in America. She earned a BA in Public Policy from the College of William & Mary and a PhD in Public Policy and Administration from the VCU Wilder School. She served in key leadership roles for local and state agencies in Virginia and is currently an associate professor of Human Services and African American Studies at the University of South Carolina Beaufort. Najmah is thankful to be continuing the Gullah Geechee tradition of community education, advocacy, and micro-farming. Some of her favorite words to live by come from renowned Kenyan professor and environmentalist Wangari Maathai – “I will be a hummingbird; I will do the best that I can.”
Cydny A. Neville, MAEd, “All of the Joy: Centering, Aligning, and Finding Peace through Art While Researching Familiar Struggles in American and East Africa”
- Ms. Cydny A. Neville is a celebrated Humanitarian, Educator, Journalist, and Entrepreneur whose body of work is grounded in Black Culture, and centered around Empowerment, Leadership, and Philanthropy.
Deborah "Dede" Todmann Anderson, “Why Did I Wait So Long?”
- Deborah, known as “Dede” in her circles, is originally from The Bronx and Harlem, NYC, having worked in the advertising, publishing and music industries where her technical skills rose from the initiation of the “world wide web”. However, her passion has always been dance and expression. Dede melds her training in Jazz, Modern, Improvisational and African Dance, with her passion for Latin Dances. Upon RYT-200, she he created “YogaDance”, blending yoga and Latin Dance. Dede teaches/taught at Hampton University OSHER, Downing Gross, 2 Left Feet Dance Studio, Impact Fitness, beDefined Fitness, Libre Dance, and CB Dance (now Ocean Breeze Dance Studio). She choreographed the 2020 “Voodoo Macbeth” at Ziegler Theatre; & Beyond Boobs; is a Pro Choreographer for Dancing with the Williamsburg Stars; and a 2019 Williamsburg Scoop feature,“Salsa Dancing in Williamsburg is Hot!”. She has had the privilege to teach for Diabetes Prevention, Parkinson’s Disease and Active Lifestyles. Dede is certified in facilitating Sound Spas, and launched Bare Courage with business partner and designer Julia Verdan-Hillebrand supporting women with hair and scalp conditions.

Panel 13: Exploring Family Histories

Moderator: Johnette Gordon Weaver

Nicka Sewell-Smith, “We Weren't Taught How to Smile” (Virtual)
- Nicka Smith is a host, consultant, and documentarian with more than 20 years of experience as a genealogist. She has extensive experience in researching the enslaved and their communities and is a valued expert in genealogy research along the Mississippi Delta.
  Nicka has diverse and varied experience in media with a background in audio, video, and written communications. She's appeared on TODAY, Good Morning America, CNN, MSNBC, an Emmy winning episode of the series Who Do You Think You Are, was featured in the groundbreaking short film, A Dream Delivered: The Lost Letters of Hawkins Wilson, and has been interviewed by National Geographic, TIME, USA Today, and New York Times. She is the host of BlackProGen LIVE, an innovative web show with more than 130 episodes focused on people of color genealogy and family history.
Darian Akida Wigfall, “Who Were The Wigfalls?”
- Darian Wigfall is an author, activist, arts organizer, DJ and entrepreneur. He co-directed the FarFetched music collective, and has worked in most of St. Louis’ arts and education industry from Nine Network to KDHX Public Media, to the Central Public Library and volunteer mentoring. Darian’s direct action in the Ferguson uprising led to his protest sign and art being inducted into the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, as well as a feature in Smithsonian magazine in December 2015. In recognition of his efforts in civil rights and business successes - Darian was featured alongside his collaborative partners in the February 2016 issue of Fortune Magazine. All of this combined work brings Wigfall to the Forward Through Ferguson Racial Healing and Justice Fund Community Governance Board and work with the St. Louis Area Violence Prevention Coalition as well as a lot of other community work currently.
LaTika Johnson Lee, “Island Time: Healing Through the 55th Annual Aiken-Singleton Family Reunion”
- A passionate champion for African American culture and heritage, LaTika Lee is the Manager of Historical Education at the Maymont Foundation in Richmond, Virginia. Her southern roots stem from the epicenter of the Gullah Geechee National Heritage Corridor where she draws inspiration from her Ancestors' resilience and determination. As a community historian, LaTika is driven to preserve, interpret, and connect untold stories that bridge the past and present. In her work as a genealogist and documentary photographer, LaTika strives to tell the stories and struggles of the past. Her journey links ancestry, oral histories, and lesser-known historical facts that ensure the narratives are not forgotten. In 2019, LaTika was awarded the "Stewards of the River Historical Values Award" for her pivotal role in coordinating the "Forgotten History Lecture Series," a program founded by the Black History Museum and Cultural Center of Virginia.
Darius Johnson, “Homecoming: Kent County – An Exploration of Rural Black Life” (Virtual)
- Darius Johnson’s research mission is to enhance communities through cultural heritage preservation, community development, and storytelling. At Washington College’s Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience, Johnson works as a Digital Justice Fellow for Chesapeake Heartland: An African American Humanities Project. Johnson graduated from Washington College in 2015 with a BA in Business Management and is pursuing a Master’s in Historic Preservation at Goucher College. With a diverse professional background, including affordable housing, land conservation, workforce development, and public history, Johnson has been recognized as an African American Trailblazer by his native Kent County, a Senior Fellow of the national Environmental Leadership Program, and a Built Environment Scholar and Community Engagement Scholar by Goucher’s Historic Preservation program. Additionally, he's a recipient of the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s Mildred Colodny Diversity Scholarship.

Panel 14: Healing Ourselves: Black LGBTQ+ Community Making in the Eras of HIV/AIDS and COVID-19 A Panel Commemorating Johnny L. Baily, Ph.D

Moderator: Dr. Jajuan Johnson

Panelists: Dr. Daniel Driffin, Dr. Kyle Fox, Robert Suttle

Dr. Jajuan Johnson, the Mellon Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow with the Lemon Project at William & Mary, is a public historian and heritage studies scholar with research and teaching expertise on Africana Studies research methods, slavery and memory, and racial terrorism. His research explores the power of places of difficult histories and heritage to cultivate public emotion (such as fear, empathy, and hope) and generate a collective sense of community in the aftermath of traumatizing events of the distant and recent pasts. He explores these dynamics in his study, "'They Didn't Burn Down Our Spirits:' Heritage Terrorism and Black Church Burnings in the Age of Obama." Drawing on Africana, anti-racist, and feminist theories, his work on heritage landscapes critically interrogates dominant narratives of cultural memory and questions historical injustices in the United States and transatlantic contexts in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Dr. Johnson's career in public history spans more than a decade. As the Director of Research and Public Programming with Mosaic Templars Cultural Center: A Museum of African American History, he piloted community-engaged research initiatives whereby local Black communities guided the interpretation of state-wide Black history. While the Assistant Director of the Starr Center at Washington College in Maryland, he co-led the Mellon Foundation-funded Chesapeake Heartland: An African American Humanities Project focused on digitizing, preserving, and making accessible materials related to African American history and culture in Kent County, Maryland and beyond.

At William & Mary's Lemon Project: A Journey of Reconciliation, he researches the university's historical ties to slavery and its legacies. He works with descendant communities to make ancestral connections to persons enslaved by the university or its associates, such as faculty and Board of Visitors members. He has lectured nationally and internationally on African American cultural preservation, descendant-engaged research, and historical memory. Dr. Johnson was a 2022-2023 Cultural Vistas Fellow, a transatlantic network of experts who promote an inclusive and progressive culture of remembrance in public spaces in Germany and the United States. He has been published in Ethnohistory, Southern Cultures, and the Arkansas Review: A Journal of Delta Studies. He has forthcoming essays in the books Preserving Culture in Times of Crisis and Change Convening and Religion and American Politics: Domestic and International Contexts. He is a member of the Oral History Association, Association of Critical Heritage Studies, American Anthropological Association, Afro-American Historical and Genealogical Society, and active with the Universities Studying Slavery Consortium.

Daniel Driffin is an HIV activist and co-founder of Thrive SS, an online support system that builds networks around the country for black gay and bisexual men living with HIV to help them achieve viral suppression and address other needs facing men of color. In 2016, Driffin gained national attention when he was chosen to speak at the Democratic National Convention, the first out HIV-positive speaker at the DNC in 16 years

Robert Suttle is a passionate speaker and advocate renowned for his impactful work in the field of HIV and human rights. With a focus on addressing issues of HIV criminalization, stigma, and discrimination, Robert draws from his journey of overcoming injustice. Through his consultancy work with leaders and advocacy groups, he lends his expertise to initiatives and campaigns aimed at raising awareness effectively and fostering a better-informed and compassionate society. Robert serves as chair of The Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation Council of Justice Leaders and as a member of the Global Advisory Panel for the HIV Justice Network. He has received numerous accolades for his activism and leadership, notably his tenure as a co-founder of The Sero Project.

Kyle Fox received his Ph.D. in Humanities with a concentration in African American Studies from Clark Atlanta University and earned a BA in Political Science and African American Studies as well as a MA in Communication Studies with concentrations in Race, Political, and Gender Rhetoric from The University of Alabama. His research focuses on the construction and performance of gendered and raced identities, specifically, Black masculinity. He is an Assistant Professor of Communication, The College of Coastal Georgia.

Panel 15: Digital Archives, Communal Care, and Healing through Comics and Flowers

Moderator: Dr. Jennifer Putzi

Joy Jackson, “Healing Our Trauma through Flora & Fauna: A Somatic Experience with Flowers”
- Joy P. Jackson has over fifteen years of experience working in the field of human development, focusing on prevention, youth development, civic engagement, education, and outreach across a wide-range of issues including human trafficking, out-of-school time, gun violence prevention, workplace & career readiness, and juvenile justice. Her work has included coalition building, outreach to underrepresented groups, strategic planning, policy development & alignment, research, and capacity building.
  
  Joy’s efforts have included partnering on award-winning teams that have been recognized nationally and internationally. In 2010, she served as the lead staff in garnering recognition as a Finalist of the Reinhard Mohn Prize for “Vitalizing Democracy” for the City of Hampton’s deliberative governance efforts focused on youth civic engagement opportunities. Joy also was part of the team that collaboratively planned, developed, and executed a youth engagement model for Pearl Bailey Library which won the National Arts & Humanities Youth Programs Award in 2013. Joy holds a Bachelor’s degree from Howard University and a Masters from the University of Arizona in History and Latin American History respectively. In addition to her work in the community, Joy also enjoys writing on the impacts of personal and collective well-being and how they affect transformative change.
Kiana Wilkerson, ““Everything’s Gonna Be Alright:” Representation and Healing through the Brotherman and Jonathan Fox Comics”
- Kiana Wilkerson graduated with a BA in History and Anthropology from William & Mary and her MA in History with a Public History Graduate Certificate from Virginia Tech. She is currently the Descendant Research Associate of the Menokin Foundation. In this position, Kiana researches the enslaved people at Menokin, the local black community, and engages with their descendants. She works closely with the Menokin Descendant Engagement Team and the Descendant Collective. When not reading comics or writing, she enjoys spending time with her cat, Walt, her family, and friends.
October Grace Kamara, “"Pledge Allegiance to the People": Remembering the Erased History of the Black Panther Party in Chattanooga, Tennessee through Digital Archiving”
- October Grace Kamara is currently a PhD student at the University of Illinois at Chicago. There she is continuing her research on Southern Black Power movements that she started while earning her MA in Public History at Middle Tennessee State University. She also works for the Roberson Project at the University of the South on the Locating Slavery’s Legacies Archive which collects Lost Cause and Confederate memorials on college campuses. Her research interests include Black Power, Black feminism, Black queer movements, the American South, public history, museums, and digital history.
Jessica Elaine Ellison, “Communal Care on Theatrical Stages (and the Black Women & Femmes Who Nurture Us)” (Virtual)
- Jessica Elaine Ellison is a Seattle-based dramaturg, theatre artist, Adjunct Professor of Theatre at University of Houston-Downtown. Jessica received their Bachelor of Arts in Anthropology from the College of William and Mary and their Master of Arts in Theatre Studies from the University of Houston. Their artistic practice seeks to uplift stories written by and for black queer communities, while also bringing anthropological theory into conversation with theatre studies. Recent dramaturgy credits include: one in two (Out Front Theatre Company), Romeo + Juliet (The Acting Company); Sweat (Alley Theatre); La Cage aux Folles (The Studio Theatre Tierra Del Sol); You’re Cordially Invited to Sit-in (Stages). You can learn more about their work at www.jeedramaturgy.com, @jesselainee on Twitter, and @jess.elainee on Instagram.

Panel 16: Good Ancestors, Silenced DNA, and Researching Our History

Moderator: Dr. Chinua Thelwell

Audrey M. McDowell, “Reclaiming Our History: In Search of Virginia Roots”
- Audrey M. McDowell has 30 years of experience conducting genealogical research on her ancestors who were living in the Piedmont region of North and South Carolina immediately following the Civil War, with a primary focus on records related to the slavery and Reconstruction eras. Several of her formerly enslaved ancestors and their slaveowners had connections with Virginia. Ms. McDowell has conducted multiple genealogy presentations at the national conference of the African-American Historical and Genealogical Society (AAHGS), family reunions and churches. A native of the Cleveland, Ohio metropolitan area, Ms. McDowell holds a B.A. in English with a concentration in African / Afro-American Studies and an M.S. in Urban Policy Analysis and Management and works as a policy analyst. She is a licensed minister and holds a M.A. from Wesley Theological Seminary, where she is currently pursuing a Master of Theological Studies. She is also the founder of Documenting Roots, Inc.
Richard M. Josey, Jr., “Becoming a Good Ancestor”
- Richard Josey is the Founder and Principal Consultant for Collective Journeys LLC. As a nationally recognized facilitator, trainer, and equity and inclusion consultant, Richard has spent over 30 years in the history field. Much of his current work centers on how museums and historical sites can become better venues for strangers to become less strange and places that mitigate trauma and promote healing. Richard’s approach involves a variety of tactics, including data gathering and analysis, development of action plans, and facilitating workshops and trainings. Richard's work is guided by a question he heard from a Dakota elder: "What Kind of Ancestor Will You Be?" This critical question has encouraged thousands of public historians to work in community development and transformation, and intentional planning. He currently serves as a member of the American Association for State and Local History's governing board and Director of DEAI for the Virginia Association of Museums.
Belle P. Long and Ernest Dollar, “Hunting for Hunters: Researching the Enslaved People at Spring Hill Plantation in Wake County, North Carolina”
- Ernest Dollar is a native of Durham, North Carolina and graduated from the University of North Carolina-Greensboro with a B.A. in History, a B.F.A. in Design in 1993, and an M.A. in Public History from North Carolina State in 2006. He served in the U.S. Army Reserve/North Carolina National Guard from 1993–1999. Since 2012, he has served as the Executive Director of the City of Raleigh Museum and the M. T. Pope House Museum in Raleigh, NC. His book on the Civil War in North Carolina, Hearts Torn Asunder: Trauma in the Civil War’s Final Campaign in North Carolina, was published in 2022.
  Belle Long, President of the Wake County (NC) Historical Society and a native of Raleigh, NC, is currently an independent researcher and was formerly the Director of the colonial-era Joel Lane Museum House in Raleigh NC for over 8 years. She holds her B.A. from Duke University and an M.B.A. from the University of Virginia.
Sheila K. Dodson, Ph.D., “Reconciling Lineages: Unravelling Silenced DNA”
- Sheila K. Dodson, Ph.D., is a graduate of the Rhetorics, Communication, and Information Design doctoral program at Clemson University. Sheila’s research interests include Slavery in the Americas, African American Archives, Genetic Genealogy, Narrative Recovery, Digital Rhetorics, and Publication. Her research investigates enslavement of Africans, their existence in the Americas, and how the condition of slavery has affected generations of a collective people. Her goal is to break through barriers of colonialist narratives, specifically pertaining to her familial lineages, by using rhetorical listening in the archives and secondary analyses of DNA sequencing for biological matches. Encountering numerous brick walls throughout her research, Sheila’s goal is to achieve narrative recovery whenever possible, providing insights for ancestors with unknown oral or written histories.

Panel 17: A School Name: The Identity, Impact, and Implications

Moderator: J.W. Caterine

Panelists: Mary Lassiter; Curtis Lassiter; Carl Lassiter; Dr. Warren Buck III

Joseph Caterine is a writer, programmer, and content creator that currently works as the Digital Experience Manager at Virginia Sea Grant. A former journalist, he has reported for publications like the Virginia Gazette, Virginia Mercury, and others. He grew up in Poquoson and graduated with a degree in English from the College of William & Mary in 2011. He developed a passion for confronting injustice in Austin, TX where he wrote for local newspapers exposing police brutality, gentrification, and systemic racism. More recently, he uncovered healthcare shortfalls at Virginia’s only privately operated prison, Lawrenceville Correctional Center, which the state has since decided to take back over. He now runs a weekly local news roundup email service called Round the Triangle that highlights top stories and upcoming events in the Historic Triangle area.

Mary Lassiter is a community historian and artist. Mary is passionate about history and has been involved in multiple efforts to highlight neglected Black histories in the greater Williamsburg area. She played a leadership role in building an online exhibit illuminating the history of the Reservation community in collaboration with The Village Initiative. She also helped to spearhead the creation of Voices of Integration, a film and digital exhibit spotlighting the experiences of Mary and her classmates in the Class of 1969, the first fully integrated graduating class in Williamsburg-James City County. Mary has pursued these themes in her artistic work as well. She created a three-part artistic montage chronicling her family’s displacement from the Reservation and resilience as they rebuilt, which was exhibited in 2020 at the Williamsburg Contemporary Art Center. She is now forging an effort to rename public schools in the region that honor individuals tied to slavery and the Confederacy. She believes in the proverb, “live and let live.” She is the mother of two adult children and has 12 grandchildren and 5 great-grandchildren.

Curtis Leon Lassiter, Sr. is a man among many who has strived to be a friend to all and a helper to those in need. Born to Carl and Mary Lassiter, he grew up, and continues to live, in the community of East Williamsburg. He has dedicated his life to his family – his wife Cynthia, five children, twelve grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren. Curtis attended Bruton Heights School during segregation, graduating in 1965. He attended Virginia State College, receiving an associate degree in Electronics before serving an honorable tour of duty in Vietnam. He was employed at Newport News Ship Building and Anheuser-Busch Brewing, retiring in 2005. Curtis is a member of the Williamsburg Men’s Club. He is a lifelong member and current deacon of Saint John Baptist Church. Curtis is proud of his heritage as an African American and as a Native American, in the Meherrin tribe.

Carl L. Lassiter, Jr. is a retired Social Studies teacher from Washington Park High School following 33 years of service with the Racine Unified School District in Wisconsin. Over the past 53 years, Carl has been actively involved in the NAACP at both the local and state levels in Wisconsin, including many leadership positions such as Executive Committee member and Chair of Political Action Committee. In addition, Carl has been an active leader in the teachers' union at the local, state and national levels (REA, WEAC and NEA), serving in a variety of leadership roles. He has been actively involved in his Church, Democratic Party as well as other organizations. In 1964, Carl graduated from Bruton Heights High School in Williamsburg, Virginia. He went on to receive a Bachelors' Degree in Education (Social Studies) from Tuskegee Institute in Alabama and a Master of Science Degree in Administrative Leadership and Supervision in Education from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. He and his wife Coleen have two children and one granddaughter.

Dr. Warren W. Buck, III served as Chair of William & Mary’s Working Group on Principles of Naming and Renaming and currently serves as Special Advisor for Equity in the 21st Century at William & Mary. Dr. Buck is a renowned physicist. After graduating from Morgan State University in 1968 with his B.S. degree in mathematics, he enrolled at the College of William and Mary where he received his M.S. degree in experimental and theoretical plasma physics in 1970 and his Ph.D. degree in theoretical relativistic nuclear physics in 1976. He is also known for his academic leadership. He co-created the first Ph.D. degree program at Hampton University and was a member of the team that established the science program at the Department of Energy’s Jefferson Lab in Newport News, Virginia. He was also the founding director of the Nuclear/High Energy Physics Research Center of Excellence at Hampton University. In 1999, Buck was appointed founding chancellor and dean of the University of Washington, Bothell. Dr. Buck received the Hulon Willis Association Impact Award for his work within the African American community at the College of William and Mary and in 2001 was named a “Giant in Science,” by the Quality Education for Minorities (QEM) Network.

Panel 18: Facets of Public History: Graduate Student Experiences and the Lemon Project

Panelists: Kelly Conway, Gabrielle Pressley, Monet Watson

Kelly Conway was the curator of American glass at The Corning Museum of Glass from 2013 to 2019. While in Corning, she co-curated and edited the museum’s 2017 exhibition and accompanying publication, Tiffany's Glass Mosaics, and she led the reinstallation of the permanent collection gallery, Corning: Glass in the Crystal City. Conway was also the Carolyn and Richard Barry Curator of Glass at the Chrysler Museum of Art in Norfolk, Virginia, from 2007 to 2013. There, she led the design and re-installation of the renovated glass collection galleries, was a key member of the team that established a hot glass studio at the museum in 2011, and was a contributor to the 2017 publication, Glass: Masterworks from the Chrysler Museum of Art. She currently serves on the Collections Committee at the Rockwell Museum of Art, on W&M’s Faculty DEI committee, and as an Editorial Adviser for the Journal of Glass Studies. Conway’s dissertation research focuses on the historical development of museums in the American South.

Gabrielle Pressley is a Williamsburg local who obtained her Bachelor of Arts in History at High Point University in North Carolina. During her time there, she worked as both an academic tutor and supplementary instructor for history courses while also studying secondary education. She graduated cum laude as a member of both Phi Alpha Theta, history honors society, and Kappa Delta Pi, education honors society. Post-graduation, she worked as a high school social studies teacher in Texas and Virginia before returning to Williamsburg. Upon her return, she accepted positions as a historical interpreter at Jamestown Settlement and a storyteller at Colonial Williamsburg before joining the graduate program at William & Mary. Her primary areas of interest include women and gender history, military history as it relates to war and society, and women in wartime. She is particularly interested in how women responded to war and periods of significant social upheaval. She has previously published newspaper articles on the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion of the Women’s Army Corps, the only black WAC unit sent overseas during the Second World War. During her time at William & Mary, she has researched women who attached themselves to the Continental Army in the American Revolution and will present that work at the 2024 NC State History Graduate Student Conference and Society for Military History Annual Conference. Moving forward, she will continue her research on the Women's Army Corps in World War II and be interning at the U.S. Army Women’s Museum at Fort Gregg-Adams, developing educational programming and assisting with their upcoming “Six-Triple-Eight” exhibit. In addition, she is the history graduate apprentice for The Lemon Project: A Journey of Reconciliation, where she assists with various oral history and community outreach efforts. She is also pursuing a graduate certificate in public history through the National Institute for American History and Democracy at William & Mary.

Monet Watson is the Lemon Project Anthropology Graduate Assistant. Her field of study is biological anthropology, and her research interests include historical anthropology; African disapora; archaeochemistry; and skeletal biology.

Panel 19: Racial Identity and Healing, Critical Conversations, and Family Histories

Moderator: Mr. Cary Goodman

Gabrielle Kubi, ““Growing With Each Other”: Cultivating Reciprocations of Care through a Critical Conversation Space Curriculum” (Eden G. Harrison, Mara Johnson, Saron Fantahun, Jamaal S. Matthews also contributed to this project.)
- Gabrielle Kubi is a doctoral candidate in the University of Michigan’s Combined Program in Education and Psychology. She graduated from Cornell University with a B.S. in Human Development with minors in Education and Inequality Studies and holds an M.S. in Psychology. During Gabrielle's undergraduate years, she participated in the Program for Research on Youth Development and Engagement, a community-engaged translational research program partnered with New York State (NYS) 4-H to better cultivate positive youth development within NYS 4-H programs. She is interested in the development of intersectional awareness among Black girls and women; and how educational spaces can be reimagined to support young Black people’s sociopolitical and identity development, particularly through university-school partnerships. She is excited to take part in the Lemon Project Annual Symposium for the second time!
Sosna Marshet; Kenna D. Yadeta MPH; Shawn Jones, Ph.D., “Racial Experiences and Racial Identity: Experiences of “New” African Americans in the United States”
- Born and raised in Tigray, Ethiopia, Sosna Marshet is a senior at Virginia Commonwealth University majoring in Psychology with a minor in Biology. Sosna immigrated to the US at the age of 17 with aspirations to become a Neuropsychologist with a primary interest in the physiological effects of stress and trauma on children caused by war and natural disasters. Sosna currently is working as a research assistant at the AYA Research Team which dedicates their time to understanding racial socialization and its impact on Black Youth. By highlighting underrepresented communities, particularly in third-world countries, Sosna is committed to advocating for mental health care that is both representative and pertinent to these communities.
Dr. Janise Parker, “Reflections from a Community-Centered Racial Healing Course”
- Janise Parker takes a healing approach to understanding the intersection of history and current practices to inform services that help communities to thrive and grow. Her research focuses on (a) culturally responsive mental and behavioral health services, (b) sociocultural factors and positive youth development, especially among Black K-12 students, and (c) religious and spiritual diversity among marginalized youth. As a licensed psychologist and researcher focused on multicultural practice, Dr. Parker has consistently trained students to respond to the needs of diverse populations by providing holistic mental health care for youth and families and/or producing scholarship of impact.
Carol Miller and Burnell K. Irby, “Educating Kenneth...Chapter Two, Diplomas Delayed”
- Carol Miller is a retired early childhood teacher. She is her family's historian. As a witness to her brother's journey with Kendall School she has maintained the papers, letters and pictures that tell his story. She is a return presenter at the Lemon Symposium.
- Burnell K. Irby has been a history teacher for the past 35 years. He is an avid community and family researcher. He can be found frequently at the NARA or traveling to locate information. Burnell is the organizer of his great grandmother's Magruder papers. He also has presented on several occasions at the Lemon Symposium.

Panel 20: Mapping as Community Healing: Space, Place, and Legacy at the Williamsburg Bray School

Moderator: Maureen Elgersman Lee

Panelists: Nicole Brown; Elizabeth Drembus; Mary Hannah Grier

Elizabeth Drembus As Genealogist, Elizabeth is leading efforts to identify and document — from the 18th through the 21st centuries — the genealogical lines of all known Williamsburg Bray School students. Employing best practices in genealogical research, she traces and documents the family lines of those associated with the Williamsburg Bray School. As part of this work, she is engaging and partnering with known and potential descendants of Bray School students, supporting them in their own family history research through one-on-one collaboration, presentations, and genealogy workshops. Prior to joining William & Mary’s Bray School Lab, Elizabeth was a genealogist for the National Society Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR), specializing in patriots of color and the lineages to their descendants. She was also a member of the research team for the Virginia Theological Seminary’s Reparations Research Project where she researched the antebellum period to find the names of enslaved persons who worked at the Seminary and searched for their descendants. Elizabeth earned her bachelor’s degree in Political Science and French from Indiana University. She is a member of the National Genealogical Society and holds a certificate from the Genealogical Institute on Federal Records.

As the Bray School Lab's Graduate Assistant, Nicole Brown works directly with the Lab Director and the student volunteers who support the Lab's research and engagement projects. A Ph.D. student in American Studies, Nicole received her MA in American Studies from William & Mary in 2022. Her ongoing study of the Bray Associates and Black literacy in American history is the main focus of her current research. Brown is also co-editing a book titled The Williamsburg Bray School: A Community Speaks to its Past and Present, which will be published by The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation in 2024. In addition to her work at the Lab, Nicole portrays Ann Wager for the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation; as the White teacher of the Williamsburg Bray School, Ann Wager’s role in the relationship between religion, slavery, and education is the center of her programming. Brown also and serves as the program manager coordinating interpretation which will be present at the Bray School site starting in 2024.

Mary Hannah Grier Throughout the spring and summer of 2022, Mary Hannah Grier was an undergraduate researcher with the Bray School Lab. Her core focus while with the Lab consisted of working on the “Adam and Fanny’s World” mapping project. This project utilized historically-based creative-reimagining of the landscape of Williamsburg to explore how scholars at the Bray School may have experienced (and likewise impacted) the world around them. It was also intended to introduce the stories of the Bray School scholars to a wider audience by applying public history methodology to a digital platform. Mary Hannah graduated from William & Mary in 2022 with a Bachelor’s Degree in History and English. She is currently a site interpreter and education department staff member at the Frontier Culture Museum of Virginia. Her ongoing areas of research include early Virginian print culture, eighteenth-century literacy and education, and consumer culture in the Shenandoah Valley during the eighteenth- and early-nineteenth centuries.

Dr. Maureen Elgersman Lee is the Mellon Engagement Coordinator for African American Heritage and Director of the Bray School Lab at William & Mary. Over her career, Maureen has served institutions in Georgia, Maine, and Virginia and has been a tenured professor, a department chairperson, and a museum director. Maureen has produced numerous books and articles on various aspects of Black history in the United States, Canada, and the British Caribbean. Her current book project is a collection on the Williamsburg Bray School (1760-1774), to be co-edited by Nicole Brown and published by The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation in 2026.

Panel 21: Tick-TOCK: Tell Your Story – Objective Imaging Advocacy – Carving Space for Healing- Keeping Sustainable Practices

Moderator: Rachel Ellick

Panelists: Dr. Kristie Norwood, Dr. Linia Willis, Shana Matthews

Rachel Ellick is a Communications and Policy Coordinator at the Office of Epidemiology with the Virginia Dept. of Health

Shana Matthews is a learning and development consultant. She is an advocate for visibility, knowledge management, and equity in all spaces.

Dr. Norwood is the Director of Hampton University’s Student Counseling Center and Founder of the Exhale Summit, a wellness experience for BIPOC women focusing on mental and emotional wellness, sustainable self-care, physical health and nutrition, emotional vulnerability, and inter/intrapersonal relationships.

Dr. Willis is a patient advocate and clinical educator who lives in Williamsburg. She is passionate about health equity, specifically research regarding oral hygiene and swallowing disorders.

Panel 22: Silenced Voices in Interpreting Sites of Slavery

Moderator: Frederick Murphy
Panelists: Jobie Hill, Nina Smith Polley, Star Reams

Jobie Hill is a licensed Preservation Architect and Slave House Expert with over seventeen years of professional experience. She has degrees in historic preservation, art history and anthropology, and is a Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design Accredited Professional (LEED AP). Since 2011, her research and professional work has focused exclusively on the architecture of slavery. She is engaged in interdisciplinary research examining slave houses, the influence these dwellings had on the lives of their inhabitants, and the preservation of the history of enslaved people. In 2012, she started an independent project titled Saving Slave Houses (SSH), with the primary goal to ensure that slave houses, irreplaceable pieces of history, are not lost forever; but also, to change the way we think, talk, research, document, interpret, preserve, restore, teach about, and learn from slave houses. One of the most important components of SSH is the Slave House Database (SHD). The SHD is a comprehensive interdisciplinary national study of slave houses in the U.S. Its inclusion of narratives from formerly enslaved people who lived in the houses fuse a voice about the human condition with the physical structure. The SHD is designed to be a resource for researchers, descendants, museums, organizations, and the public to study and interpret the surviving evidence of slavery. In her preservation efforts she has worked with the National Museum of African American History and Culture, TED Talk, Trimble, Google, Historic American Buildings Survey, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, National Trust for Historic Preservation, C-SPAN, Montpelier, and Monticello.

Nina Smith Polley, a descendant of Rachel Strange from Pharsalia, hails from Lynchburg, Virginia. Her advocacy extends to combating sexual and domestic violence, as well as championing women's empowerment. Inspired by community dialogues, Nina is dedicated to engaging public and private sectors in discussions about creating solutions to challenges faced by people of color. Nina currently serves on the boards of Many Voices, One Community, and the Descendants of Enslaved Communities at UVA. Past board roles include Treasurer and Finance Committee Chair for YWCA of Central Virginia, as well as contributions to the State of Virginia Nursing Scholarship Advisory Committee, Lynchburg Police Department’s Community Advisory Group, and Live Healthy Lynchburg Advisory Group. Nina's dedication to education, empowerment, and community building has led her to work in African American history museums and as a grant coordinator. Her focus on walkable spaces, efficient transportation, and healthy communities drives her to advocate for historical black farm restoration, social inclusion, economic growth, poverty reduction, and pollution mitigation.

Star Reams (a descendant of Rachel Strange from Pharsalia), is a genealogist and a founding member and Board Secretary for the Descendants of Enslaved Communities at the University of Virginia. Her journey into the world of genealogy began at an early age when she started listening to and researching the oral history passed down by her maternal grandparents. Star’s dedication to unearthing the past has led her to complete extensive genealogical research on the enslaved community in Nelson County, Virginia, particularly at Pharsalia. She has also contributed her expertise as a consultant and participant in "The Silenced Voices in Interpreting Sites of Slavery," an oral history documentary, where she played a crucial role in preserving the voices and stories of the past. Star attended Lynchburg City Public Schools and received a BBA in Business Management and MS in Human Resource Management from Strayer University.

Panel 23: Reconciliation through Conversations, History, and Communal Healing

Moderator: Cydny A. Neville

Kerri Moseley-Hobbs and MaryLyle Buff, “The Reality of the Unfinished Business of Enslavement and Testing the Feasibility of Reconciliation”
- Dr. Kerri Moseley-Hobbs: Executive Director of the More Than A Fraction Foundation Dr. Kerri Moseley-Hobbs continues an almost 20-year career in postsecondary education including administration and research/program development, policy, regulation, experiential learning, and historical research. She leads the Foundation’s work on projects regarding the voices of Africans in America and African Americans of 17th and 18th centuries. She is a 5th generation descendant of John Fraction, the subject of her first Creative Nonfiction book “More Than A Fraction: Based on A True Story”.
  
  MaryLyle Buff: MaryLyle works in Information Technology as a project manager, instructional designer, and data analyst. She has a background in education, behavioral therapy, and mind-body integrative practices. A descendant of James Patton Preston, she is currently collaborating with close and extended family and the More Than a Fraction Foundation to explore descendancy and cultural reconciliation.
Shelley Viola Murphy, “Beyond the Records: Conversations with Descendants of Slave Owners in Genealogy”
- An avid genealogist for over 30 years, Dr. Shelley Viola Murphy, aka "familytreegirl". She conducts genealogy workshops at local, state, and national conferences. Murphy serves on the Boards of the Library of Virginia and the Albemarle Charlottesville and Fluvanna Historical Societies. She is a Coordinator and Instructor at the Midwest African American Genealogy Institute (MAAGI) and develops staff and public genealogy educational programs for the Center for Family History at the International African American Museum (IAAM). Serves as the Genealogist General for the Society of the First African Families of English America and Trustee for the International Society for British Genealogy and Family History. Currently working for the University of Virginia as the Descendant Project Researcher-seeking descendants the enslaved laborers who helped build the university. Host of “Freedmen’s Bureau Friday’s. An Adjunct Professor at Averett University since 2009.
Jenay Willis, Ph.D., “Texas Christian University's 150th Anniversary: Commitment, Compassion, & Communal Healing”
- Jenay F.E. Willis, Ph.D. currently serves as the Postdoctoral Fellow for the Race & Reconciliation Initiative (RRI) at Texas Christian University (TCU). The RRI is in its fourth year at the University, in which Jenay leads the University’s efforts of the RRI to address the history of slavery, racism, and the Confederacy through research and the RRI’s Oral History Project. Specifically, she addresses the impact of the coronavirus pandemic and ongoing pandemics (i.e., anti-Black racism) on race and reconciliation work. Through her work with the RRI, Jenay brings a spatial equity lens as a rural expert. Additionally, she takes on a collectivist approach as a community-driven researcher through engaging in conversations with students, faculty, staff, and alumni from historically marginalized racial backgrounds. Jenay’s work with the RRI is rooted in authenticity, compassion, and truth while honoring the voices of those whose narratives need to be told.
Ervin L. Jordan Jr., “Campus of the Damned: Slave Families at the University of Virginia, 1818-1865” (Virtual)
- Professor Ervin L. Jordan Jr. is an associate professor and research archivist at the University of Virginia’s Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library since 1979. He specializes in Civil War, African-American history and Virginia history, and is author of three books including Black Confederates and Afro-Yankees in Civil War Virginia (University Press of Virginia, 1995. Professor Jordan has published nearly 70 articles, book chapters, and reviews for a variety of publications including the Encyclopedia Virginia and is a Wikipedia entry. A member of the University’s Memorial to Enslaved Laborers Names Committee and formerly of the President’s Commission on Slavery and the University, Professor Jordan’s research on the African-American experience has appeared in two University of Virginia Press monographs: The Key to the Door: Experiences of Early African American Students at the University of Virginia (2017) and The Founding of Thomas Jefferson’s University (2019.)

Panel 24: Moved from the Land, Called to the Stand: Reservation Descendant Reflections on the Yorktown Navy Mine Depot Displacement

Moderator: Molly Robinson

Panelists: Dr. Crystal Haskins; Ms. Rosa Lee; Ms. Shontel Nicholas; Ms. Jacquelyn Gardner

Molly Robinson is a doctoral candidate in the American Studies Program at the College of William & Mary, and a member of the Village Initiative’s Executive Team. Her work addresses questions of land tenure, race, belonging, and legal culture in modern American history, with a focus on the legacies of federal eminent domain and its impact. Molly conducts research in collaboration with community members to investigate the intersections of land loss, racism, and environmental injustice. She works with the Village Initiative’s Local Black Histories Project to bring stories of displacement and community resistance to students in Williamsburg-James City County Public Schools. Most recently, this has manifested in online exhibits that blend written narrative, oral history clips, and archival documents.

Dr. Crystal Haskins, a native of Williamsburg, Virginia, is consistently driven to enhance her inner excellence, as well as that of her family and community. She is married to Albert Haskins, and they are blessed with two children: Caidyn Lila and Chase Reed. With 19 years of experience in the educational field, Dr. Haskins has served in various roles, including teacher, assistant principal, principal, and is currently the Director of Equity, Assessment, and Strategic Operations. Her expertise lies in strategic planning, professional learning, and comprehensive school improvement. Last year, she established Crystal Clear Strategies and Solutions to further her endeavors and collaboratively forge pathways to success for the educational, business, private, and public sectors. Dr. Haskins is committed to driving forward momentum and fostering transformative change, aiming to empower and uplift for the collective betterment.

Ms. Rosa Lee is a retired public school social worker in the District of Columbia Public Schools. She has a love for history and considers herself an amateur historian. Her research into family history began in the early 1990s and included the help of her then pre-teen daughter, Nedra, who today is a professor of Anthropology at the University of Massachusetts in Boston, MA. Educationally, she attended the public schools in Williamsburg and received her BS degree at Virginia State University and an MA in Social Work from Howard University in Washington, D.C. She is a member of the James Dent Walker Chapter of the AAHGS (African American Historical and Genealogical Society) in Washington, D.C. Rosa Lee is a descendant of the Lee, Holmes, and Taylor families who lived in the Reservation community. She has conducted in-depth research at the National Archives in Washington, D.C. on the U.S. government’s displacement of families from the Reservation. Her archival research led to the discovery and digitization of over 5,000 pages of firsthand testimony from Reservation residents and over 300 photos of their homes, churches, schools, and other buildings. In 2017, she coined the term “Quiet Determination” to describe Reservation families’ enduring strength in the aftermath of displacement, which became the title for the online exhibit about the event created in partnership with the Village Initiative’s Local Black Histories Project.

Ms. Shontel Nicholas is from Brooklyn, New York. She is a retiree with deep ancestral roots in Williamsburg, Virginia. She is a direct descendant of Edward “Capt. Eddie” and Sarah Schofield, and Langman and Priscilla Casey. Both couples owned land on the Reservation and were displaced from the Yorktown Navy Mine Depot after the 1918 federal eminent domain order. Ms. Nicholas is a novice genealogist who enjoys learning about her ancestors from Virginia, including many ancestors from the Armfield, Dove, and Jones families.

Ms. Jacquelyn Gardner is a descendant of Justice John A. “Tack” Roberts who lived in the Reservation community and served as the first Black Justice of the Peace in York County. She received a BS in Elementary Education in 1965 and an MA in Education and Administration in 1990, both from Hampton University. She served as a teacher in the Williamsburg-James City County Public Schools from 1965 to 1972 and then as Director of the local Head Start program from 1972 to 2000. Mrs. Gardner has served in leadership roles in many organizations, including as President of The Virginia State Head Start Association (1990-95), and she was appointed to the Virginia Council on Child Day Care and Early Education Programs by Governor Douglas Wilder in 1990. She has also served as a member of a wide range of organizations, including Kappa Delta Pi International Honor Society in Education (1969), Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. (1978), Pre School Task Force - Williamsburg James City County School Board, Board of Supervisors and City Council (1996-2002), Williamsburg James City County Community Partnership and Excellence in Education (1992-94), First Baptist Church, Williamsburg, VA, NAACP (Life), Greater Williamsburg Women Association, LeCercle Charmant, Inc., Retired Teachers of Williamsburg/James City County, Big Brothers/ Big Sisters, St. John Baptist Church After school Tutorial Program, and The Village Initiative’s Local Black Histories Project Board (2021-present). She is married to Dennis Gardner and has two children.

Panel 25: Rekindling the Family Flame: A Family's Pursuit of Liberty from Virginia to Liberia (Hybrid)

Panelists: Shanda Cooper Goff, Seward M. Cooper

Shanda Cooper Goff is a Liberian-American with over 15 years of professional experience in international development, partner engagement, corporate social responsibility, and health equity. Shanda holds an AB in International Relations from William & Mary and an MSc in Violence, Conflict, and Development from the University of London, School of Oriental and African Studies. Active in her community, she is the Chair of the W&M Society of 1918 and Co-Chair of the Outreach and Social Justice Ministries at the Washington National Cathedral. Passionate about genealogy, Shanda records the stories of older relatives to safeguard their history.

Seward M. Cooper, Esq., is an international and corporate laywer. His work history includes serving as Principal, Cooper & Co. (Counselors-at-Law); Judge & Vice President, the World Bank Administrative Tribunal; served as the Legal Advisor to the President of the Republic of Liberia Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Ellen Johnson Sirleaf [(2011 – 2016). He has researched early Liberian history and the connection with the United States of America. He was educated at the College of West Africa (Diploma); University of Liberia (Bachelor of Business Administration); University of Wisconsin-Madison (post-graduate studies in agricultural economics); the University of Wisconsin Law School (Doctor of Law - Juris Doctor). He has been admitted attorney-at-law, Liberia; Counselor-at-Law, Supreme Court State of Wisconsin; Counselor-at-Law, Supreme Court of Liberia; Member of the Bar, Supreme Court of the United States of America.

Panel 26: Reassembling the Pieces: Restoration for Descendants of a Race Massacre (hybrid)

Moderator: Bernice Alexander Bennett

Panelists: Shar Goolsby, Orice Jenkins

Shar Goolsby is currently a Physical Therapist Assistant, Integrative Energy Medicine Practitioner, and Certified Yoga Teacher. Shar is a graduate student at the College of William & Mary, pursuing an M.Ed. in Clinical Mental Health Counseling with a concentration in Military and Veteran Family Trauma. She is also the owner of the Leap of Faith Healing Sanctuary and Gardens, which champions evidence-based psychotherapy, somatic therapy, energetic medicine, and trauma-informed healing approaches to bolster holistic well-being.

Orice Jenkins is a recording artist, genealogist, educator, and author from Hartford, Connecticut. He began researching his family history upon discovering that Whitney Houston’s grandparents were from his grandmother’s hometown of Blakely, Georgia. Since then, he has traced his ancestry back to 1756 in Central Virginia, uncovering the stories of several formerly enslaved Americans. Orice is a member of the Sons and Daughters of the U.S. Middle Passage and the Afro-American Historical and Genealogical Society. He has appeared on podcasts and radio shows such as “Research at the National Archives & Beyond” and his research has been featured in The Washington Post and television shows such as Finding Your Roots. Orice has also worked as a consultant for Dr. Matt Baker, the creator of UsefulCharts.com, collaborating on genealogy videos that have garnered millions of views on YouTube. Orice’s newest project is a book chronicling the family of Grandison Goolsby, a prominent farmer who was extrajudicially lynched in Early County, Georgia in 1915. The book will be released in 2024 through The History Press, an imprint of Arcadia Publishing. Orice also publishes a blog called Chesta’s Children, and serves as the Executive Director of a youth music program in Greenfield, Massachusetts.

Bernice Alexander Bennett is an award-winning author, genealogist, nationally recognized guest speaker, storyteller, and producer-host of the popular Research at the National Archives and Beyond BlogTalkRadio program. She is also the first recipient of the Ida B. Wells Service Award given by the Sons and Daughters of the United States Middle Passage for her dedication to broadcast stories about enslaved and indentured ancestors of African descent. She also received the Elizabeth Clark-Lewis Afro-American Historical and Genealogical Society (AAHGS) Genealogy Award in 2019 for original research in support of African American Genealogy. Bennett is on the Board of Directors for the National Genealogical Society.

Bennett, a New Orleans native and current resident in Maryland, enjoyed a 35-year career in domestic and international public health. She received an undergraduate degree from Grambling State University and a graduate degree in Public Health from the University of Michigan.

Her genealogical research centers on Southeast Louisiana, and also Edgefield and Greenwood Counties, South Carolina. Her South Carolina journey is chronicled in Our Ancestors, Our Stories, which won the 2018 International AAHGS Book award for Non-Fiction Short Stories. Her second book Tracing Their Steps – A Memoir received the Phillis Wheatley Literary Award from the Sons and Daughters of the United States Middle Passage in 2019 and the International AAHGS Book Award in 2020 for Non-Fiction Short Story.