Keynote Speaker & Plenary Panelists

Dr. Daniel Black returns as keynote speaker and guest scholar

Dr. Daniel Black is an award-winning novelist, professor, activist, mentor and public speaker. His published works include They Tell Me of Home, The Sacred Place, Perfect Peace, Twelve Gates to the City, The Coming, Listen to the Lambs, Don’t Cry for Me, and Black on Black. In 2014, he won the Distinguished Writer’s Award from the Mid-Atlantic Writer’s Association. The Go On Girl! National Book Club named him “Author of the Year” in 2011 for his best-selling novel Perfect Peace. Perfect Peace was also chosen as the 2014 selection for “If All Arkansas Read the Same Book” by the Arkansas Center for the Book at the Arkansas State Library. The novel has been reprinted more than ten times and is being heralded as an American literary classic. Dr. Black has been nominated (three times) for the Townsend Literary Prize, the Ernest J. Gaines Award, the Ferro-Grumbley Literary Prize, the Lambda Literary Award, he Georgia Author of the Year Prize, and the Mark Twain American Voice in Literature Award.

In 2015, Dr. Black’s The Coming was published to broad critical acclaim. The novel is a first-hand account of the trauma and triumph of Africans aboard a slave ship in the 16th century. Reviewers call this work “brilliant”, “poetic”, and “a literary homage to the lives of those Africans tossed into the sea.” National Book Award winnerCharles Johnson says, “The Coming is powerful and brilliant.” He goes on to state, “This is a work to be proud of!” In 2016, Dr. Black’s long-awaited novel Listen to the Lambs was released. This novel explores the lives and agency of unhoused people who find each other on the street and create lives of meaning without material substance.

Dr. Black’s work has been justly celebrated. Pulitzer Prize winning author Alice Walker says this about Perfect Peace: “It is a spellbinding novel that kept me reading late into several nights. A young boy raised as a girl until ‘she’ was eight years old…. and then? Forced to be a ‘boy.’ It is a gift to have so much passion, so much love, so much beautiful writing so flawlessly faithful to the language of ancestors who grappled as best they could with more than they could ever understand. This novel will one day be a film of much benefit to us, if done well. The visuals of it will help us see what we are so often blind to: the great fluidity inherent in all things, including ‘race’ and sexuality. Thank you, Daniel Black.”

Dr. Black’s newest novel, Don’t Cry For Me, was released by HarperCollins on February 1st, 2022. About this novel, National Book Award winner Jesmyn Ward says, “Don’t Cry for Me is a perfect song: the epistolary dirge of a man singing to his son as he faces death by cancer. At turns intense and funny, tender and brutally honest, Jacob’s letter to his son, Isaac, is revelatory. It’s a beautiful book. Read it.” Black’s newest work is his first essay collection titled BLACK ON BLACK, which was released on January 30th, 2023. In response to this work, renowned Baldwin scholar Dr. Eddie Glaude says, “Black on Black is a tour de force. Brilliant. Passionate. Deeply caring. One reads these essays and feels immediately enveloped in Daniel Black’s love—even when he challenges you or when you might disagree. I really needed to read this book in these trying times.”

Dr. Black also works as a diversity consultant, having spoken at top-tier companies in America such as Google, Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, AT&T, and Global Payments. He assists corporations with creating work environments in which all employees, of every level and difference, feel supported and valued.
A native of Kansas City, Kansas, Black spent his formative years in rural Blackwell, Arkansas. He graduated from Clark College (now Clark Atlanta University) where he earned the prestigious Oxford Modern British Studies fellowship and studied abroad at Oxford University. He was then awarded a full fellowship to Temple University where he studied with Black Arts Movement poet laureate Sonia Sanchez and, in 1992, earned his Ph.D. in African American Studies. Dr. Black has spent the majority of his 30 academic years as a professor of African American Studies at his beloved alma mater, Clark Atlanta University.

Dr. Black lives in Atlanta and is the founder of the Ndugu-Nzinga Rites of Passage Nation, a mentoring society for people of African descent who seek to love themselves and build a world of character for their people.

Descendant Communities Speak Plenary Panel

Vanessa Adams-Harris, Panelist 

Vanessa Adams-Harris is Muscogee (Creek) American Indian with African American/Scot/Irish ancestry.  She is an artist, facilitator/presenter, interpreter of history, human rights community activist/peacebuilder.  She has presented both nationally and internationally.  She currently serves as Director of Outreach & Alliances for the John Hope Franklin Center for Reconciliation-Tulsa, OK, Past Vice-Chair for the Greater Tulsa Area Indian Affairs Commission, President-North Tulsa Historical Society, Vice-President of TKWolf, Inc, an American Indian non-profit organization, an assistant to Rev. Gerald L. Davis, Church of the Restoration Unitarian Universalist-Tulsa in the historic Greenwood District and is a 2022 Cultural Vistas Transatlantic Cultural Exchange Fellow in Building a Diverse and Inclusive Culture of Remembrance (DAICOR) transatlantic exchange program funded by the Transatlantic Program of the German Government, the Heinrich Böll Foundation, Washington, DC and the U.S. Embassy-Berlin.  She has presented in Mumbai, India, Stockholm, Sweden, Edinburgh, Scotland, Liverpool, England, Caux, Switzerland, and throughout the United States. 

​She presents regularly to schools as well as civic organizations and the public on Oklahoma history, race and reconciliation.  She is an Oklahoma Chautauqua Scholar (2015, 2017, 2018 and 2024) and was the 2019 Artist in Residence for Chautauqua Enid Public Schools where she presented the 1921 Tulsa Massacre’s history to over 2,500 Oklahoma students.  She is a presenter/facilitator with the Los Angeles Women’s Theatre Festival and co-presenter with Dr. Ann Dapice for the 2018 Women Are Sacred Conference “Resilience: Walking in Ancestral Footprints, Carrying Our Medicine,” Albuquerque, NM, and has trained among an international coalition for Women as Peacebuilders through the Just Governance Human Security-X-IoC(Initiatives of Change) Caux, Switzerland on the Six Pillars of Human Security. She trained with Father Michael Lapsley’s Institute of Healing for Memories-NA Workshop in Ossining, NY.

​She edited and directed the documentary by TKWolf, Inc. “Unheard Voices-Stalking in Indian Country” and “Unheard, Unseen” an Interview with Dr. Reid Melloy a leading stalking forensic psychologist. Her area of study in anthropology and theatre from the University of Tulsa, continues to support her interest of the search for meaning with our sense of place giving emphasis on the essential usage of reconciliation in the process of building a lasting peace.   She draws on the need to present the historical accuracy of African American and Indigenous peoples' voices and lived experiences.  She is currently pursuing master’s degree from Phillips Theological Seminary-Tulsa.

Jacqueline Bridgeforth-Williams, Panelist

Jacqueline Bridgeforth Williams is the Founder and Executive Director of The Village Initiative for Education Equity, a grassroots organization advancing equity, justice, and truth in education and community spaces across Williamsburg and James City County. Through policy advocacy, school programming, early literacy, and the preservation of local Black histories, her work has created lasting, systems-level impact.

Her leadership bridges grassroots organizing and institutional change. From producing annual education equity reports to leading nationally recognized initiatives such as the Local Black Histories Project and the documentary Displaced from the Birthplace of America, Jacqueline ensures that data, history, and lived experience remain central to education equity conversations. Her work was also featured in a national article in Essence Magazine, highlighting how The Village Initiative uses data to confront education inequity for Black students.

Her service has been recognized locally, statewide, and nationally, including the Presidential Lifetime Achievement Award from President Joe Biden and the Social Justice Award from the Virginia Education Association, honoring her commitment to civil rights, education, and community leadership. She is also a co-founder of the August Wilson American Century Cycle Freedom School Series, extending her commitment to culturally grounded education, arts-based learning, and intergenerational impact. Her work is rooted in descendant-led truth-telling and the belief that courage, dignity, and joy are essential to fortifying Black communities across generations. In alignment with the Lemon Project’s mission, she is committed to engaging institutions in honest reckoning, repair, and healing grounded in historical truth and community partnership. At The Village Initiative, community partnerships and collaborations are central to this work, and for that, she is deeply grateful. “We are because they were.”

Darius Johnson, Panelist 

As the newly appointed Project Director for the Chesapeake Heartland, Darius Johnson will be working closely with Starr Center colleagues and with partners from beyond the Center, including advisory committees and consultants, to steer the project's strategic planning, funding, and impact. In this new position, Darius will seek to engage a diverse group of Washington College students and faculty in the project and support substantive learning opportunities that contribute to Chesapeake Heartland's success.  

Darius Johnson is a scholar-practitioner focused on public history, historic preservation, community development, and philanthropy. His efforts are driven by his desire to help strengthen and sustain communities by drawing upon the intersections of cultural heritage, land use, and storytelling. At Washington College, Darius works with faculty, staff, students, and community members to develop the next phase of Chesapeake Heartland: An African American Humanities Project and to expand the project's digital archive through collaborative digital repatriation partnerships with the Maryland State Archives, Maryland Center for History and Culture, and the American Antiquarian Society. 

A native of Kent County, Darius graduated from Kent County High School in 2011. He received the Vincent Hynson Scholarship to attend Washington College where he graduated in 2015 with a BA in Business Management. Always appreciative of his roots, Darius prioritizes investing in the people and places that invested in him—he previously served on the Washington College Alumni Board and he regularly supports the Washington College Business Department as a speaker to current and prospective students. He also serves on the Board of Directors for the Chesapeake College Foundation as President and the Board of Directors for Eastern Shore Land Conservancy. 

Darius is influenced by diverse work experiences across affordable housing, construction, land conservation/land use, fundraising, workforce development, and business analytics. For his efforts, he was named an African American Trailblazer by Kent County's Martin Luther King Jr. Breakfast Committee. For his research interests, he was named a Built Environment Scholar and Community Engagement Scholar by Goucher College where he is pursuing a Master's in Historic Preservation. For his leadership, he was named a Mildred Colodny Diversity Scholar by the National Trust for Historic Preservation and he is a Senior Fellow of the Environmental Leadership Program. 

Of all his work, one of his favorite projects is “Homecoming: Kent County” which is a research project completed for his 2020-2021 Community Curation Fellowship with Chesapeake Heartland. Darius completed oral history interviews of family members and curated 60 photos that reflected rural black life in Kent County through positive themes such as love, labor, and celebration. He's continued to build on this work throughout his graduate studies—growing personally, as much as professionally. He hopes to help others do the same by discovering their heritage. 

Prior to the new position as Project Director, Darius was the Digital Justice Fellow, which was funded by the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS). The ACLS Digital Justice Grant program is designed to promote and provide resources for projects at various stages of development that diversify the digital domain, advance justice and equity in digital scholarly practice, and/or contribute to public understanding of racial and social justice issues. 

Brian Palmer, Panel Moderator

I'm a Peabody Award–winning journalist based in Richmond, Virginia. During my 30-year career I have photographed conflict, politics, activism, daily life, and more around the world  and in my own backyard. My strength is capturing life candidly, clearly, and creatively.

I strive to tell stories in pictures about people and situations that might not otherwise be told, with integrity, professionalism, independence, passion, and compassion.

My photos have appeared in the New York Times, Buzzfeed, Narrative.ly; my writing in Smithsonian Magazine, the New York Times, and the Nation; and audio on Reveal.

My documentary, Full Disclosure, which appeared in 2011 on The Documentary Channel, along with several magazine articles and photo exhibitions, grew out of three media embeds in Iraq with U.S. Marines. In 2019, along with my collaborator, Seth Wessler, I received a Peabody for Reveal radio story "Monumental Lies.”

Before going freelance in 2002, I was a CNN correspondent. Prior to that, I was Beijing bureau chief for US News & World Report, during which time I photographed for many of my articles.

Currently, I'm currently working on Make the Ground Talk with my wife, Erin Hollaway Palmer, a documentary that evokes life in a historic black community that was uprooted during World War II to build a naval base, now a top-secret U.S. military installation. Another long-term project, photography of Virginia's neglected African American cemeteries, grew out of the documentary.