Black Artists & Activists

Jason Reynolds is a #1 New York Times bestselling author, a Newbery Award Honoree, a Printz Award Honoree, a two-time National Book Award finalist, a Kirkus Award winner, a two-time Walter Dean Myers Award winner, an NAACP Image Award Winner, and the recipient of multiple Coretta Scott King honors. Reynolds is also the 2020–2021 National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature. His many books include When I Was the Greatest, The Boy in the Black Suit, All American Boys (cowritten with Brendan Kiely), As Brave as You, For Every One, the Track series (Ghost, Patina, Sunny, and Lu), Look Both Ways, and Long Way Down, which received a Newbery Honor, a Printz Honor, and a Coretta Scott King Honor.

For more information on Reynolds, please see the webiste linked here.

Angie Thomas was born, raised, and still resides in Jackson, Mississippi as indicated by her accent. She is a former teen rapper whose greatest accomplishment was an article about her in Right-On Magazine with a picture included. She holds a BFA in Creative Writing from Belhaven University and an unofficial degree in Hip Hop. She can also still rap if needed. She is an inaugural winner of the Walter Dean Myers Grant 2015, awarded by We Need Diverse Books. Her award-winning, acclaimed debut novel, The Hate U Give, is a #1 New York Times bestseller and major motion picture from Fox 2000, starring Amandla Stenberg and directed by George Tillman, Jr. Her second novel, On the Come Up, was released in 2019.

For more information on Thomas, please see the website linked here.

Jacqueline Woodson is the author of numerous award-winning books for young adults, including Last Summer With Maizon, I Hadn't Meant to Tell You This, From the Notebooks of Melanin Sun, and Miracle's Boys. She started writing when she was young, but her fiction for kids didn't really click until she got older. That's when she realized that she could actually help the younger generation simply through her words. That's why Woodson chooses subjects that she thinks kids should be able to read about — even if they're topics that are hard to explain or uncomfortable to talk about. Woodson currently lives in Brooklyn, where she writes full-time and can be found in the mornings hanging out in Prospect Park with her dog, Maus.

For more information on Woodson, please see the website linked here.

Yaa Gyasi is a Ghanaian-American novelist and the author of Homegoing, one of the most celebrated debut novels of 2016. Homegoing is a story of race, history, ancestry, love, and time that traces the descendants of two sisters torn apart in eighteenth-century Africa across three hundred years in Ghana and America. Gyasi’s new book, Transcendent Kingdom, is a powerful, raw, intimate, deeply layered novel about a Ghanaian family in Alabama.

For more information, please see the article linked here.

Michaela Coel (Michaela Ewuraba Boakye-Collinson) is a Ghanaian British actress, screenwriter, singer, songwriter, poet and playwright. Michaela is known for playing Arabella in I May Destroy You, a tv series which she wrote and co-directed. I May Destroy You depicts the main character and her friends tangling with issues of consent and processing the trauma of sexual assault.

For more information, please see the video linked here.

Writer, producer, activist and artisit, Bree Newsome drew national attention in 2015 when she climbed the flagpole in front of the South Carolina Capitol building and lowered the confederate battle flag. Bree’s act of defiance against a symbol of hate has been memorialized in photographs and artwork and has become a symbol of courage, resistance and the empowerment of women.

For more information - please see the website linked here.

John Lewis was recognized as one of the "Big Six" leaders of the Civil Rights Movement along with the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Whitney Young, A. Phillip Randolph, James Farmer and Roy Wilkins. Lewis helped coordinate and delivered the Keynote address at the March on Washington in August 1963, where Dr. King's gave the historical "I Have a Dream" speech.

From 1987 until his passing in 2020, Lewis served as the Representative for Georgia’s 5th Congressional District. Congressman John Lewis dedicated himself to protecting human rights, securing civil liberties, and building what he calls "The Beloved Community" in America.

Miss Major is an activist, Stonewall veteran, and community leader for the rights of transgender people of color. She has fought for Black liberation and abolition and served as the Executive Director for the Transgender Gender Variant Intersex Justice Project, which helps trans folks in the carceral system, in which they are disproportionately impacted. She now runs House of GG’s, a safe haven and retreat house for the transgender community in Arkansas. Learn more about Miss Major through her documentary here.

Angelica Ross is a leading figure of success and strength in the movement for trans and racial equality. Named, “1st Foot Soldier of the Year” in 2015 by Melissa Harris Perry, Angelica Is the founder of TransTech Social Enterprises, a company that empowers trans and gender nonconforming people through on-the-job training in leadership and workplace skills. Angelica has toured nationally, speaking her powerful mission into action with business leaders, educators, and the President of the United States.

For more information, please see the webiste linked here.

Kimberlé Crenshaw is the Co-Founder and Executive Director of the African American Policy Forum, and the founder and Executive Director of the Center for Intersectionality and Social Policy Studies at Columbia Law School. She is popularly known for her development of “intersectionality,” “Critical Race Theory,” and the #SayHerName Campaign, and is the host of the podcast Intersectionality Matters!

For more information, please see the website linked here.

Tarana Burke is best known for founding the Me Too Movement which raises awareness about sexual harassment, assault, and abuse. Burke’s career started in Selma, Alabama where she worked with the 21st Century Youth Leadership Movement, the Black Belt Arts and Cultural Center, and the National Voting Rights Museum & Institute.

For more information on Burke and the #MeToo movement, please see the website linked here.

Amy Sherald received her MFA in Painting from Maryland Institute College of Art (2004) and BA in Painting from Clark-Atlanta University (1997) and was a Spelman College International Artist-in-Residence in Portobelo, Panama (1997). In 2016, Sherald was the first woman to win the Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition grand prize; an accompanying exhibition, The Outwin 2016, has been on tour since 2016 and opened at the Kemper Museum, Kansas City, MO in October 2017. She is best known for her portrait paintings. Her choices of subjects look to enlarge the genre of American art historical realism by telling African-American stories within their own tradition. She is well known for using grisaille to portray skin tones in her work as a way of challenging the concept of color-as-race.

For more information on Sharald, please see the website linked here.

Lee Mokobe is an award-winning slam poet, content creator and creative director. Mokobe is a TED Fellow and Adobe Creativity Scholar. They are the founder of Vocal Revolutionaries, a non-profit organization focused on empowering creative African youth using digital art. Lee is also an LGBTQ activist specifically referencing their experience as a black transgender immigrant in South Africa and America. Through queer advocacy, they have been published several times including alongside Barack Obama and Harvey Milk in Loud and Proud (LGBTQ speeches that inspired the world). Their works and art are taught as part of university and college curriculum all across the world.

For more information on Mokobe, please see the website linked here.