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
