Speakers

Cecil “Sensi” Francis

Music Teacher/ Pannist

Charisse Sims

Educator and Co-founded the Sims Library of Poetry

Charmaine Lord

Culinary Host & Yoga Practitioner

Dr. Amina Blackwood Meeks

Storyteller, Author & College Orator - EMCVPA

Dr. Horace Alexander

Author & Retired Professor of English

Dr. Joan Marques

Editor, Author, Motivational Speaker & Professor - Woodbury University

Dr. Juanita Coleman-Merritt

Author & Educational Consultant

Dr. Myriam Chancey

Author, Guggenheim Fellow and HBA Chair of the Humanities at Scripps College

Heather Thompson

Retired Attorney & Storyteller

Hon. Cassandra Chase

Co-Founder, Read Lead|vDirector, Equity and Justice Institute, Crossroads School for Arts and Sciences| Councilmember, City of Lakewood, CA

Hon. Triston Ezidore

Culver City School Board Member

Hon. Yasmin McMorrin

Director of Education Policy, Children's Defense Fund CA | Vice Mayor, Culver City, CA

John Jennings

Founder of ABRAMS Megascope & Professor of Media and Cultural Studies at the UC Riverside

Judith Falloon-Reid

Award Winning Film Director, Author & Motivational Speaker

Kesha Christie

Storyteller

Lesley Ann Wanliss

Editor and Consultant

Lynne Thompson

Poet Laureate and a Poet Laureate Fellow of the Academy of American Poets

Malachi Smith

Poet, Educator & Mitchner Caribbean Writers Institute Fellow

Mary Alice Stewart

Literary Agent

Melissa Shepherd-Williams

Adjunct Professor - Pacific Oaks College

Phoebe Guiot

Phoebe Guiot, Acquisitions Manager, Los Angeles Public Library

Taifha Alexander

CRT Forward Project Director at UCLA School of Law Critical Race Studies Program

Tiphanie Yanique

Author & Associate Professor at Emory University