TRUNKS, SATCHELS AND THE US POSTAL SERVICE

From January 29, 2024 - February 5, 2024, Ms. Afrika Abney promoted the panel discussion entitled: TRUNKS, SATCHELS AND THE US POSTAL SERVICE: Book Distributors and Store Owners Tell Their Stories About Getting Black Books into the World By Any and All Means Necessary via email and on social media.

2:00 pm – TRUNKS, SATCHELS AND THE US POSTAL SERVICE: Book Distributors and Store Owners Tell Their Stories About Getting Black Books into the World By Any and All Means Necessary. PRESENTERS Courtland Cox, Shirikiana Gerima, Paul Coates, * Vanessa Williams,  and Kojo Nnamdi  

"Courtland Cox is President of CCAP Consulting, LLC, which was incorporated in the District of Columbia in July 2011.

Presently, Mr. Cox is part of the DCPEP team that works with the Department of General Services (DGS) of the District of Columbia Government. As part of the DCPEP team, Mr. Cox is responsible for making sure that there is compliance with federal and District law pertaining to CBE and workforce participation on all DGS projects. In 2009, Courtland Cox served as a Consultant to the Office of Public Education Facilities Modernization (OPEFM) and was responsible for the participation of businesses and workforce participation in over $1 billion in the construction, rehabilitation and maintenance of schools in the District of Columbia. Mr. Cox has also served as a consultanct with the Hensel Phelps Construction Company to ensure that District residents and District businesses participate in the approximately $400 million Marriott Marquis Convention Center Hotel construction project.

From 2004 until 2008, Courtland Cox served as the Director of Small, Local, Businesses Development for the DC Sports & Entertainment Commission (DCSEC) to ensure small business and District workforce participation in the construction of the approximately $900 million Nationals Baseball Stadium. During the construction of the ballpark project, he was responsible for the compliance of a Project Labor Agreement (PLA), and all Federal and District laws. During this period, he also was also a consultant to the Anacostia Waterfront Commission an agency charged with the development of the District’s Southwest Waterfront. From August 2001 until September 2003 he worked as a consultant to the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies and from 2003 until February 2004 he served as a senior advisor to the ASABA Group."

"W. Paul Coates is the founder and director of Black Classic Press, which specializes in republishing obscure and significant works by and about people of African descent. A leader in the field of small publishers, Coates founded BCP Digital Printing in 1995 to produce books and documents using digital print technology.

Coates formerly served as an African American Studies reference and acquisition librarian at Howard University’s Moorland-Spingarn Research Center. He is a graduate of Clark Atlanta University (M.S.L.S.), and Sojourner-Douglass College. A former member and Maryland State coordinator of The Black Panther Party, he was instrumental in the establishment of the Black Panther Party Archives at Howard University.

Coates is co-editor of Black Bibliophiles and Collectors: Preservers of Black History (Howard University Press, 1990). He formerly owned and operated The Black Book (1972 ’ 1978), a Baltimore-based bookstore. His experience with the purchase, sale and collection, and publishing of books by and about Blacks is a love affair that has continued for more than three decades. "

• "Vanessa Williams is a student and practitioner of all things critical pedagogy, with a special appreciation for social studies and literature. She holds a B.A. in Anthropology with a minor in Education from Davidson College; she also has a  M.S. Ed in Education, Culture, and Society from the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education. Vanessa taught secondary ELA and social studies for six years before becoming the program manager for D.C. Area Educators for Social Justice, a project of Teaching for Change. She serves on the D.C. History Conference planning committee and has been featured on panels for the Mid-Atlantic Equity Consortium. Vanessa’s writing is published in Rethinking Schools and Education Post."

"Kojo Nnamdi, Rex Orville Montague Paul, better known as Kojo Nnamdi, is a Guyanese-born American radio journalist based in Washington, D. C. He is the host of The Kojo Nnamdi Show and The Politics Hour on WAMU, and hosted the Evening Exchange broadcast on WHUT-TV from 1985 to 2011. "

"Shirikiana Gerima is an independent filmmaker in Washington, DC where she resides with her family.  She was born in Detroit, Michigan where she worked as a young person as a news announcer on WJZZ radio and volunteered with Project BAIT (Black Awareness in Television).  She received a BA in Radio. TV and Film at Howard University, and a MA in African Area Studies at UCLA.  She has taught film at Howard University, and is currently executive director of Positive Productions, a film services organization for independent black filmmakers.  With her husband Haile Gerima, Aina co-founded Mypheduh Films Distribution company and Negod Gwad Production company.  They have co-produced several films including: SANKOFA, THROUGH THE DOOR OF NO RETURN, FOOTPRINTS OF PAN AFRICANISM, BRICK BY BRICK, STERLING BROWN: AFTER WINTER,WILMINGTON 10-USA 10,000,TEZA, ADWA,ASHES AND EMBERS. Shirikiana and Haile co-founded Sankofa Video and Bookstore in Washington, DC, which specializes in books by and about people of African descent.  Shirikiana also has won numerous awards including Grand Prize, Documentary, Luxor Film Festival Berlin Film Festival ( Sankofa) Best Cinematography, FESPACO, Burkina Faso, Juror’s Discretionary Award in Film, Three Rivers Arts Festival, Black American Cinema Society, Honoree, Women in the Director’s Chair, AFI Awards, Community Choice Award, National Black Media Consortium, Prized Pieces. She is a scuba dive master, and an instructor with Youth Diving With a Purpose, an organization that trains young people to be marine archaeology advocates by mapping shipwrecks. Shirikiana is a proud mother of six and grandmother of two. "