Black Collections Symposium

Dr. Curtis Austin received his Ph.D. from Mississippi State University in 1998. From 2001 to 2007, he served as Director of the Center for Oral History and Cultural Heritage at the University of Southern Mississippi. While working in this capacity, he was project director of one of the most important digitization projects in American history---one that conducted oral histories with people who lived through the Jim Crow era, including civil rights activists. These oral histories were digitized and made available for public consumption via the world wide web. From 2011-2017, he taught at The Ohio State University in the Black Studies Department and served as director of the Young Scholars Program, a unit that trained, mentored, and recruited underserved students for enrollment at OSU. In addition, he has been the founding Director of Black Studies programs at the University of Southern Mississippi (2007-2011) and at the University of Oregon (2017-2020). Austin currently teaches African American History and the History of the Civil Rights Movement at Arizona State University. He is the author of the award-winning book Up Against the Wall: Violence in the Making and Unmaking of the Black Panther Party, which is based on extensive oral histories with former members of the Black Panther Party. His current research projects include a documentary history entitled Unsung Heroes of the Civil Rights Movement, which seeks to tell the stories of heretofore unknown activists of the Black Freedom Struggle. He is also writing the history of the San Francisco 8, former members of the Black liberation movement arrested by state and federal agents in 2007 on homicide charges stemming from 1971 police killing. In addition to traditional sources like newspapers, trial transcripts, and government documents, Austin will use oral histories to tell the story of how these eight men organized against their false arrests and how, four years after their arrest in 2011, they convinced the California court system to dismiss the charges against them.

Todd Bailey was born in AZ in 1967, and found his way straight to art and dance as a kid. He trained hard and left home to travel the world, working in NYC and Las Vegas, as well as working onstage in Europe with Quincy Jones, Tom Jones, Phil Collins and many other artists. After a long career in show business, Todd Produced a show called Troubadour Cafe, a variety show using singers and dancers and cirque performers who were local to Arizona, and oversold room after room with the show. Also passionate about Arizona history, Todd accepted a position at Arizona Historical Society 6 years ago. The job as Special Projects Coordinator has become a perfect fit for Todd, as he has been able to be liaison to several different communities whose stories aren't being told as often. Todd worked in the Large Events Market as well and it lends a hand in the events planning at THe Arizona Heritage Center, where Todd will also greet you at the front door. Todd has inspired and helped exhibits and programs around the African American Migration to Arizona.

Virgil J. Berry, Jr., is the CEO of Berry Realty & Associates, Inc. Virgil started in the Real Estate Industry in May 1982. He graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in Real Estate from the WP Carey School of Business of ASU. Driven by Virgil’s vision of continually improved services and inspired by the need to improve the community. Following in father's footsteps who started Berry Realty & Associates in 1960 the same year Virgil was born. Berry Realty, the firm has established a reputation for providing quality contract services to clients throughout Phoenix, Arizona. Virgil Berry has a very large background of management experience through contracts, real estate brokerage and consulting. Virgil also has a history of urban development through both commercial and residential properties. Mr. Berry manages the successful delivery of duties that includes land acquisitions, construction management and zoning issues for the past 40 years. 

Virgil Berry was born in Phoenix, Arizona and attended East High School prior to attending Arizona State University following his mother and father who both graduated from ASU. Virgil Berry is married to the Honorable Carol S. Berry (retired Judge) and they have two wonderful children Jacquelyn Grace Berry (Law School Graduate) and Virgil J. Berry, Ill (Vice President Berry Realty & Associates). As in the current day Berry Realty is poised to build a major project that exemplifies Virgil Berry's vision of creating a diversified urban neighborhood. This project is being developed as a mixed-use/hotel project in the Eastlake Park neighborhood. 

Virgil Berry has served on several boards, commissions, and committees Including the Phoenix Board of Realtors, National Association of Real Estate Brokers, City of Phoenix Affordable Housing Committee and Planning and Zoning Commission Chairman. Virgil was also a part of the Valley Leadership Class XV, Booker T. Washington Center Redevelopment Committee. In addition, Virgil is a long-standing member of Pilgrim Rest Baptist Church and the Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity. 

Carla LynDale Bishop is a filmmaker and Assistant Professor at the Sidney Poitier New American Film School at Arizona State University. She is currently building an immersive digital archive, Mapping Blackness, that documents the stories of historically black communities across the US using AR and VR technologies. This project awarded her the inaugural recipient of the MIT and Black Public Media Fellowship, as well as, the Sundance Interdisciplinary Grant Award. Her documentary “Freedman Town 2.0” is an Augmented Reality documentary that utilizes image-based and location-based content to celebrate the life and history of Black communities in Denton, Texas. She also produced an intergenerational documentary called “Voices of the Hill” to tell the stories of Twinsburg Heights, a thriving Black community in Northeast Ohio. 

Darren Chapman is a community pro-activist who has committed his life to helping people. He is Founder and CEO of TigerMountain Foundation (a.k.a. TMF), which has implemented Empowerment Initiatives to uplift communities and eliminate blight. TMF’s initiatives are community garden / landscaping development, audio, visual and performance art, community service and volunteerism. The gardens promote healthy living and active lifestyles by feeding, engaging and enfranchising the community. TMF’s Asset Based Community Development model was developed with the thought that anyone and everyone can and should be connected and feel a part of society. The end game strategy is urban renewal and community restoration via participants who are encouraged to stay engaged and motivated to keep positive and develop their individual very important assets. Darren’s motto is to change one mind and attitude at a time, encouraging all who have been touched to pay it forward, which will undoubtedly make the immediate and surrounding community and world a better place to live. Darren is from South Central Los Angeles and grew up in L.A. and S. Phoenix. He currently resides and works in South Phoenix and the Phoenix Metropolitan area.

Leilani Clark is an Afro-Indigenous (Santa Clara Pueblo/Diné-Navajo) poet, filmmaker, performance artist and community organizer. Born and raised in Tucson, AZ, during her youth she became involved in human and immigrant rights organizing in the borderlands and the fight to preserve cultural education in Arizona public schools against the state-wide ban of Ethnic Studies. Since 2013, Leilani has developed her art of poetry, storytelling and spoken word to confront silence around gender-based violence in movement spaces. Her art truly flourished during transformational years in Las Vegas, NV while performing regularly in the Sin City open-mic scene and co-hosting the longest running weekly open-mic, “The Human Experience.” After returning to Arizona, Leilani’s work, through both her art and organizing, focused upon racial, gender and environmental justice and forming spaces of healing and resiliency for survivors of violence. Leilani has been a featured artist, keynote speaker, and presenter for multiple community and academic events throughout the Southwest and West Coast. She currently resides between New York City and Raleigh, North Carolina where she is further developing her craft of storytelling through the art of film. Leilani is producing two documentary films under her production company, Elevate Media Films, and releasing short stories on issues of human rights, equity, arts & culture with her independent digital media news outlet, Elevate Media News.

As an artist and scholar, Grisha Coleman works in areas of movement, digital media, and performance that engage creative forms in choreography, music composition, and human-centered computer interaction through critical frameworks of techno-social studies, equity and race. Her artwork engages the relational nature of our physiological, technological, and ecological systems; our bodies, our machines, and the places we inhabit. Coleman engages this exploration in explicit and broadly interdisciplinary ways, centering presence and experience to counter conventional dichotomies of quantitative/qualitative thought in data research and digital media to move towards an embodied research justice. She currently holds the position of professor of movement, computation, and digital media in the College of Arts, Media and Design at Northeastern University, with an affiliation in the School of Arts, media and Engineering at ASU.

Coleman’s current arts research, developed as a Radcliffe Fellow , is THE MOVEMENT UNDERCOMMONS: Technology as Resistance | Future Archives - to reimagine the use of new mobile motion-capture technology to build a data repository of vernacular movement portraits that center on cocreating critical and often overlooked narratives emergent of movement patterns through animate, sonic, and sculptural treatment of movement data. Her echo::system is a springboard for re-imagining the environment, environmental change, and environmental justice.

Coleman earned an MFA in music composition and integrated media from California Institute of the Arts. Her work has been supported by Carnegie Mellon University’s STUDIO for Creative Inquiry, Creative Capital, the Jerome Foundation, MacDowell, the MAP Fund, the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York Foundation for the Arts, Pioneer Works, the Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center, Stanford University’s Mohr Visiting Artist program, and the Surdna Foundation. She danced as a member of the acclaimed company Urban Bush Women, and subsequently founded the music performance group Hot Mouth, which toured internationally and was nominated for the Drama Desk Award for Unique Theatrical Experience.
 

Dr. Chandra Crudup is the Associate Dean for Inclusive Design for Equity and Access (IDEA) in the Watts College of Public Service and Community Solutions and a Clinical Associate Professor in the School of Social Work at Arizona State University (ASU). She is the Interim Director of the Studio for Creativity, Place and Equitable Communities, and an affiliate faculty in The Design School. She recently served as the Downtown Representative for the Faculty Women of Color Caucus at ASU. She was awarded the 2017 Catalyst Award by the Committee for Campus Inclusion at ASU, the 2017-18 Arts Hero award sponsored by the Salt River Project and presented by On Media Publications, the 2020 Transformational Educator of the Year by the National Association of Social Workers, Arizona (both Branch I and state awardee), and the 2021 Faculty Women Association Outstanding Mentor Award by the Faculty Women Association at ASU. 

She is active in the national Critical Mixed Race Studies community, advancing the field with her leadership support on the board and producing their international conferences. Locally she has been an active member and supporter of the Black Theatre Troupe for over 20 years. Her social work practice experience has been in K-12 schools where she conducted program research and development that resulted in the creation and implementation of experiential programs for youth, facilitated character education workshops, violence prevention, anti bullying and other educational workshops and training for students, families, and staff. Additionally she co directed an after school youth theater program for 10 years. 

From her work with youth to community building and engagement, both locally and nationally, she combines a lens of collaboration and artistic expression through storytelling to build community, transform pedagogy and practice, and expand aspects of research while dismantling systems of oppression. 
 

Dr. Meskerem Glegziabher is an applied cultural anthropologist with a doctorate from Michigan State University. She is currently a Clinical Assistant Professor and the Director of Inclusion and Community Engagement in Arizona State University’s School of Human Evolution and Social Change whose research and praxis focuses on intersectional marginalization, notions of belonging, and structural inequity. Some of her recent work has focused on highlighting the often-ignored history and contemporary lives of Black Arizonans through community partnered visual exhibitions, oral history projects, and invited lectures.

Nancy Liliana Godoy is the Director of Community-Driven Archives Initiative and Associate Archivist of ASU Library's Chicano/a Research Collection. Under her leadership, the CDA team is reimagining and transforming 21st century academic libraries and archives by developing innovative solutions to dismantling power structures that lead to erasure and trauma for BIPOC and LGBTQ+ communities. Godoy has received several grants including one from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation ($450,000) and the Institute of Museum and Library Services ($534,975) to engage and empower historically marginalized communities in Arizona. She is the recipient of the Rising Star Award (Arizona Humanities 2017), the ASU Catalyst Award (Arizona State University 2019), the Outreach Services Award (Arizona Library Association 2019), and the Movers and Shakers - Advocates Award (Library Journal 2020), and the Archival Innovator Award (Society of American Archivists 2022).

Tracee Hall is an Assistant Director for the Phoenix Parks and Recreation Department. Her span of control has included oversight of 185 flat-land parks, 32 community centers, 32 pools, 8 golf courses (two managed through long term leases), 41,000 acres of preserve land with 200-plus miles of trails and 40 trailheads, numerous programs, classes and events, Pueblo Grande Museum located on a 1500-year-old prehistoric Hohokam archaeological site, and over 1000 employees. She currently oversees two geographic divisions (South and Northeast) and the Natural Resources and Special Operations divisions.

Her tenure with the city of Phoenix began over 20 years ago, as a part-time recreation employee for the Parks Department. During her career with the city, she has served as a Deputy Chief of Staff and a Senior Policy Advisor for two Mayors (Greg Stanton and Phil Gordon). She has also worked in other City departments such as Aviation and Human Services and participated in the City’s Management Intern Program.

Tracee also has a consulting business that she operates in her spare time, Transitional Grace Consulting, in which she provides life skills trainings and workshops for children in the child welfare system. Her consulting business also provides administrative support, technical writing and project management to businesses and nonprofits.

A Phoenix native, Tracee attended Arizona State University, where she earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Sociology and Master of Arts degree in Public Administration. While pursuing her education, she cheered professionally for the Arizona Cardinals and Arizona Rattlers.

Tracee currently serves on Arizona State University President's Inclusion and Success committee. She is a member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. and the National Forum for Black Public Administrators.

She has received numerous recognitions such as the Emerging Leader Award from the Maricopa County branch of the YWCA (Young Women's Christian Association), the Phoenix Business Journal as one of the "40 Under 40 Emerging Leaders" and by Ebony Magazine as one of the "Nation's 30 African-American Leaders Under 30 Years of Age".

She has previously served on boards such as the Suns Nite Hoops Board, AZ Teen Pregnancy and Prevention and the Arizona Education Foundation. She has also participated in community programs such as Valley Leadership and the Black Board of Directors. She previously participated in the 2002-2003 Arizona Republic Newspaper’s Public Pulse Panel, seen in the Sunday Viewpoints Section.

As a testament to her professional accomplishments and community service, she has received numerous awards. Her previous recognitions include receiving the Emerging Leader Award from the Maricopa County branch of the YWCA (Young Women’s Christian Association) (2011), the Steven D. Ford Memorial Award for Emerging Leaders from the National Forum for Black Public Administrators (2006) and being recognized by the Phoenix Business Journal as one of the “40 Under 40 Emerging Leaders” (2005) and by Ebony Magazine as one of the “Nation’s 30 African-American Leaders Under 30 Years of Age” (2004).

Tracee has three children- Elijah, Nicholas, and Trinity.
 

Dr. Kenja Hassan serves as Assistant Vice President in the Office of Government and Community Engagement at Arizona State University. Throughout her time at ASU, Kenja Hassan has worked to forge relationships with diverse communities throughout the state of Arizona.  Kenja has brought college preparation programs to American Indian youth on reservations, orchestrated national dialogs on pressing issues in the Nation’s capital, guided student service projects across Arizona, and launched a series of reports on the status of Arizona’s diverse communities.      

Dr. Hassan holds a B.A. in Religion from Princeton University and a M.A. in Religious Studies from Arizona State University both with an emphasis on American Indian traditions.  Her writings on American Indian religious land claims have been presented before congress and published in a compilation of oral histories. Her PhD is from the Edson College of Nursing and Health Innovation at Arizona State university and offers recommendations on increasing patient-centered care for African Americans living with HIV.  She is currently a Senior Fellow in the ASU Foundation for a New American University.  

Lorrie McAllister is a senior administrator for ASU Library with responsibility for information resources services related to all segments of the print and digital collections lifecycle, including facilitation of access to information resources through selection, acquisition, licensing, description, management, access, and preservation. McAllister also advocates for strategic initiatives and projects through establishing partnerships, working with collaborators, and writing grants. 

McAllister is Associate University Librarian leading the Collections Services & Analysis Directorate, which includes the following program areas: acquisitions and analysis; cataloging and metadata management; licensed collections and copyright help; archival, distinctive, and general collections development and management; University Archives, Labriola Native American Indian Data Center; interlibrary loan, document delivery, and borrowing services; conservation, preservation, digitization and reformatting, archival processing; and shared print archiving programs.

In addition, McAllister has experience in collection development and management; resource selection, instruction, and reference support for the disciplines of Architecture, Landscape Architecture, City Planning, Design, and related fields; digital library design and project development; digitization and program development; original cataloging of visual materials; data analysis, grant writing; and engaging with donors, collaborators, and partners.

Dr. Dontá McGilvery is the first Black male to graduate with a PhD in Theatre from Arizona State University. He is the co-founder and co-artistic director of Sleeveless Acts-- a community-based theatre company that creates productions, civic-arts based partnerships, and educational residencies with and for marginalized communities. In addition to leading a theatre company, Dr. Dontá serves as the Community Engagement Coordinator for ASU's Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts. Dr. Dontá’s research employs Theatre as a tool for activism. His scholarship and practice primarily focus on Black Theatre and the Black church, performativity of the American Civil Rights Movement, and developing equity performance coalitions to decenter whiteness in Predominantly White Institutions. A licensed and ordained minister, Dr. Dontá serves as the Pastor of Outreach and Justice at First Institutional Baptist Church, and he also serves as the inaugural Theatre Artist in Residency for Princeton Theological Seminary's Black Theology and Leadership Institute.

Michele Neptune McHenry is the wife of Phoenix native, the late Joseph H. McHenry. Michele graduated from Colorado State University with a degree in psychology then went on to earn her master's in social work from Portland State University. Michele's career as a mental health professional spans over 35 years mostly in the healthcare industry supporting healthcare workers. Michele loves to travel and explore cultures around the world.  On her bucket list remains Morocco, Ireland and Scotland.

Joseph McHenry was the first African American graduate of Brophy College Preparatory in 1961. His paternal family migrated to Clifton, AZ from Texas in 1901 and his maternal family migrated to Morenci, AZ from Oklahoma during the 1920's. Joseph and Michele embarked on their genealogical research path after Joseph was diagnosed with his second bout of cancer and the couple moved to Arizona from Oregon in 2011.  

One of the family mysteries they uncovered was Joseph's Aunt Stella McHenry.  Estella McHenry's college graduation picture led Michele to learn Stella was the first African American female graduate of Tempe Teacher's College. This pioneer family sent four of their children to what is now ASU between 1923-1936. Consuelo McHenry, Estella's sister, was one of the reporters for The Arizona Gleam newspaper based in Phoenix and founded by Mrs. Ayra Hackett.  

Joseph went to St. Mathews parish school, attended Brophy College Preparatory, attended ASU and joined the US Army. He was a graduate of Portland State University and taught high school in Portland Oregon for many years. Joseph followed in the path of elders on both sides of his family who chose to join the military and serve in combat. He achieved his dream of becoming a pilot through his military training and served as an US Army helicopter pilot in the Vietnam War. He provided our country with 22 years of military service.  Out of the more than 40,000 helicopter pilots who served in Vietnam, less than 2% were African American. Joe's oral history of some of his Vietnam experiences can be found at the Library of Congress. Joseph's commitment to his community and his country, coupled with his personal mission to protect his family, led him to persevere through the many national challenges of the era of the 1960s and 1970s and through the grip of combat related PTSD.

Michele Neptune McHenry is on a mission to ensure the incomprehensible sacrifices, breathtaking stories and valorous achievements of Joseph and the other African American helicopter pilots of the Vietnam War will have their own renowned pillar in our American Military history and American Aviation history. Michele continues to work with ASU teams to determine the full scope of the McHenry family's experience at ASU, particularly the trailblazing role of Estella McHenry. 

Bruce Nelson is an independent curator and documentary filmmaker from Mesa, Arizona. His work as a curator and documentarian focuses heavily on his experience of living in the once segregated Washington Escobedo neighborhood. His method of curation uses community input as its foundation to thereby reflect and celebrate community members of this often overlooked neighborhood. Nelson’s film practice has developed to be in conversation with compatible exhibitions without either relying on one another for context. A part of the conversations he desires to spark, Nelson ties objects and lived experiences to develop the personal narratives of the community reflects. Through commitment, hard work and passion he developed his ability to create a framework that can transfer from traveling exhibits to documentaries to easily publishing books.        

Dr. Ersula J. Ore is Associate Professor of African & African American Studies in The School of Social Transformation. She is a rhetorician who researches and teaches in the areas of African & African American studies, rhetorical studies, and racialized violence. Her book Lynching: Violence, Rhetoric & American Identity (University Press of Mississippi, 2019) which received the 2020 Rhetoric Society of America Book Award, examines lynching as a rhetorical strategy and material practice interwoven with the formation of America’s national identity, and the precursor to antiblack police violence today. Her current work examines how appeals to civility, civility discourse, and civilizing strategies curtail and racialize the civic performances of Black women as they operate in public space. Her work can be found in Rhetoric Society Quarterly, Rhetoric & Public Affairs, Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies, Women Studies in Communication, Quarterly Journal of Speech, Pedagogy, Present Tense, Critical Discourse Studies, and Rhetoric, Politics & Culture among others.

Dr. Josephine H. Pete is a lifelong resident of the South Phoenix Community, who retired as Deputy Superintendent of the Phoenix Union High School District. Dr. Pete’s philosophy about her work is, “The cost of educating is great; the cost of not educating is greater.” This statement gives you a good idea of where she has focused her efforts. It’s been said in many ways, she says, “Our legacy is determined by what we do for others.” 

Through the years, Dr. Pete held firmly to the belief that, “All students can learn.” She believes in “Parent Power,” and often called for parental involvement in the development and governance of school programs and policies. One of her favorite quotes is “Parents don’t care how much you know; until they know how much you care.” Dr. Pete has demonstrated her care and concern by devoting her skills and finances to motivating and encouraging students to stay in school and succeed academically. Her interest in building foundations within the neighborhood reinforced her strong commitment to educating, empowering, and enforcing equal access for all females.

She is a graduate of South Mountain High, and earned her Bachelors, Masters, and Education Specialist Degrees at Arizona State University. She received her Doctorate Degree in Education Administration from Nova Southwestern University.
Her career includes teaching at the Elementary, Secondary, College and University levels. Dr. Pete was a member of the team of volunteers who taught classes on the C.O. Greenfield Elementary School Campus until funding was available to finance the establishment of the now South Mountain Community College. She served in the Phoenix Union High School District as a Counselor, High School Principal, Executive Director of Human Relations, Assistant Superintendent, and Deputy Superintendent.

She was the first female to serve as principal of South Mountain High School (1985), her Alma Mater, where she spent countless hours working in the community to improve the school’s image by creating new innovative programs. Once asked, “Do you have to attend every meeting? She responded, “I can’t ask others to follow, if I don’t lead.” It was under her leadership the school Magnet Programs begun.

In 1996, Dr. Pete was appointed the first female Deputy Superintendent of the Phoenix Union High School District. Her major responsibilities were to oversee the Phoenix Union High School District Desegregation Court Order, preside over discipline appeals, and represent the superintendent in his absence.

Dr. Pete served the community as an Educator, Volunteer, and Professional Role Model. After more than 40 years of experience, she is uniquely qualified to discuss educational issues in urban areas. She has spoken frequently on issues impacting at-risk youth, i.e., gang activity and drug awareness, equal access for women, stress management, self-esteem building, parental involvement, magnet schools, multi-cultural awareness and diversity, and Black History.

During the Katrina Flood, she and her husband Louis organized and managed the Katrina Bed and Bath Program to assist victims relocated to the phoenix area. The warehouse was located at the South Mountain Seventh-day Adventist Church, and supported by many churches within the Arizona Conference. Through this program, they were instrumental in supplying bed and bath items, bed frames, mattresses, linen, pillows, towels, and other small household items to families who were impacted by the flood. During this time Dr. Pete also assisted in the placement of students in various schools in the Phoenix areas. She is a licensed real estate sales person and used her skills and expertise to help many families find housing. Through the years, she has served in numerous positions in her church and spent countless hours of volunteer community service. She recently joined the Arizona Historical League. She works as a volunteer with the Okemah Community Historical Foundation. She and her late husband Louis, have also enjoyed volunteering for the Diana Gregory Outreach Service Foundation. 

A recipient of numerous awards including Chase Bank Outstanding Principals Award, The Arizona Alliance of Black Educators Leadership Award, The H. B. Daniels Bar Association - Martin Luther King Jr. Justice Award, NAACP Outstanding Educator’s Award (2000), the Phoenix Fire Department J. W. Robinson Society United Black Firefighters - Citizens Award (2006), and the National Association of Black Criminal Justice Arizona Chapter - Professional Role Model Award, the National Coalition of 100 Black Women Education Legend Award (2018). She is a recipient of the 2020 Phoenix Chapter of Links Art of Academia award for Excellence and Extraordinary Service.

Dr. Pete is referenced in the 1989, Arizona history textbook entitled, “Arizona, It’s Place in the United States” by Jay Wagoner. She is also recognized in the first edition of “Celebration of Women” by Linda Groomes Walton. She is a Life Member of Arizona School Administrators, the NAACP, and A Golden Life Member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority. 
Dr. Pete and her late husband Louis have two daughters Cheryl and Traci. They are the proud grandparents of three grandsons, Bradford Louis, Quentin Douglas, and Kevin Joseph. Dr. Pete is the proud great-grandmother of two, Louis Francis and Ella Victoria. 

Dr. Anthony Pratcher II is an Assistant Teaching Professor and Honors Faculty Fellow in Barrett, the Honors College, at Arizona State University. He earned a B.A. in History from Howard University and a Ph. D. in American History from the University of Pennsylvania. He co-edited a textbook on planning history, Planning Future Cities (Dubuque, IA: Kendall-Hunt, 2017), with Dr. Walter Greason, and is currently composing a manuscript, entitled, Searching for my People: Black Arizonans and the Making of the Metropolitan Southwest, under contract with University of Arizona Press. His research has been funded by an NEH/ODH Fellowship on Space and Place in Africana/Black Studies and, along with a forthcoming refereed article in the Bulletin of the Journal of Medicine, he has been published by Pennsylvania Magazine of Biography and History, Southern California Quarterly, and Technology and Culture. A proud alum of Deer Valley High School, he was born and bred in Glendale, Arizona.

Jessica Salow is the Assistant Archivist of Black Collections at Arizona State University (ASU) Library. She obtained her Masters in Library and Information Science (MLIS) from the University of Arizona and is an alumna of Arizona State University. She recently was awarded a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services titled “Centering BIPOC Memory Keepers and Advancing Equity and Inclusion” designed to attract a more diverse workforce for the Library and Information Science field. Additionally, she is the recipient of the 2022 Archival Innovator Award from the Society of American Archivist and the 2023 Catalyst Award for inspiring and igniting transformation and inclusion at Arizona State University. Her current work focuses on specialized reference and instruction as well as creating a robust collection of primary and secondary resources that document the lived experiences of Black people living and thriving in the state of Arizona.

Allinston Saulsberry is the Instruction and Outreach Librarian in the E-Learning and Instruction division at ASU Library. Allinston’s focus areas are on existing and prospective student instruction, programs, and projects dedicated to connecting different users/user communities to Library resources and engaging new and diverse audiences. Her current projects include developing digital learning objects for course curriculum with an emphasis on library research methods for foundational courses as well as developing support services and resources for First-Generation Students.

Dr. Mako Fitts Ward is an Assistant Professor Assistant Professor of African American and Women and Gender Studies in the School of Social Transformation and affiliate faculty in The Design School in the Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts at Arizona State University. Her research explores the intersection of Black cultural production, culture industries and urban creative placemaking efforts to advance arts practice and foster inclusive community development. As director of the Social Transformation Lab, her work amplifies community social networks and data-informed solutions and investments in inclusive equity for organizations across sectors. She is co-editor of The Pandemic Reader: Exposing Social (In)justice in the Time of COVID-19 (DIO Press, 2021) and served as lead researcher on several national surveys exploring the experiences of women’s workplace experiences in higher education, for- and non-profits, philanthropy, government and the creative arts. Her writing has appeared in a wide range of academic journals, edited volumes and popular news blogs, including Huffington Post, The Conversation and Ms.