The African Diaspora in the Americas ~ Political and Cultural Resistance.
Jesus "Chucho Garcia
Mr. Garcia is a human rights and political activist from Venezuela, founder of the Afro-Venezuelan Network and a leader in the struggle against racism and corporate globalization in the Americas. He is the author of numerous books and the subject of several films about the history and present culture of people of African descent in Venezuela. He was a participant in the Plataforma Venezolana delegation to Miami against the FTAA, and spoke at the Globalization and the African World Conference as well as at the protests against the School of the Americas in Georgia. He is the author of several books; the most recent, Caribeñidad, won the best Afro-Venezuelan theme in the"IV Venezuela Book National Prize." .
Rose Brewer
Dr. Rose M. Brewer is Professor, Morse-Alumni Distinguished Teaching Professor, and past chair of the African American & African Studies Department at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities. Professor Brewer also holds affiliated appointments in the Departments of Sociology and Gender, Sexuality and Women’s Studies. She received her M.A and Ph.D degrees in Sociology from Indiana University , and did post-doctoral studies at the University of Chicago . She has written extensively on black families, race, class and gender, and public policy, publishing over 40 refereed journal articles, book chapters, and scholarly essays in these areas. She is the editor with Lisa Albrecht of Bridges of Power: Women’s Multicultural Alliances. She is also co-editor of Is Academic Feminism Dead?: Theory in Practice (New York University Press, 2000), with the Social Justice Group, Center for Advanced Feminist Studies, University of Minnesota . Her most recent co-authored book is The Color of Wealth (The New Press, 2006), which was selected as one of the top l0 books for 2006, receiving the Gustavus-Meyers Book Award for best books on bigotry and human rights. Professor Brewer’s commitment to undergraduate education and her scholarly achievements have been widely recognized. She is one of ten University of Minnesota faculty recipients of the Morse-Alumni Teaching Award for Teaching Excellence and Outstanding Contributions to Undergraduate Education. She has also received the African American Learning Resources Center Award for Teaching Excellence, among numerous other awards. In 1999 she was inducted into the National Academy of Distinguished Teachers, University of Minnesota-Twin Cities. Professor Brewer has spent over a decade working on curriculum transformation and progressive pedagogy, and consults nationally on issues of race, class, and gender in the curriculum. Rose Brewer defines herself as a scholar-activist. For over a decade, she has been a member of the board of Project South: Institute for the Elimination of Poverty and Genocide. She has also served on the board of United for a Fair Economy, and is a founding member of the Black Radical Congress .
Lester Nurse
Professor of Sociology at the Universidad Interamericana de Puerto Rico, Dr. Lester Nurse is also a historian, anthropolist and activist. He has spent most of his life documenting the history and culture of afro-Puerto Ricans, particularly in the San Mateo de Cangrejos community in Loíza, Puerto Rico. He also conducts comparative work on the origins and simmilarities of afro-Caribbean cultural and religious traditions.
Nekima Levy-Pounds
Professor Nekima Levy-Pounds is the director of the Community Justice Project (CJP) of the University of St. Thomas Interprofessional Center for Counseling and Legal Services. Levy-Pounds teaches and supervises law students as they use the law as a tool to advance the cause of social justice in distressed communities of color. More specifically, CJP students use creative problem-solving skills to tackle a variety of community-based legal and non-legal initiatives such as police misconduct and brutality; issues involving juveniles in the justice system and public education system; restorative justice for criminal defendants; collateral consequences of criminal convictions, and community education. Levy-Pounds’ goal in founding the CJP was to take a more holistic approach to addressing complex issues affecting the poor and working poor. In addition to her work in the CJP, Levy-Pounds is an active contributor to the field of civil rights and criminal justice by serving as a consultant to local community groups and organizations, a commentator in local media, and a lecturer and presenter in national and international forums. Her scholarly interests include the impact of the war on drugs on poor communities of color, the treatment of women in prisons, and race and the criminal justice system. Levy-Pounds has also began focusing on issues related to youths of color and the impacts of intersecting issues of race, class, and gender on this segment of the population. Prior to teaching at St. Thomas, Levy-Pounds was appointed Visiting Assistant Professor at the University of Illinois College of Law, where she taught in the live-client Civil Practice Clinic. In her capacity as a Clinical Professor, Levy-Pounds instructed law students on how to effectively represent indigent clients in a variety of civil legal matters, including family law, domestic violence, debt defense, and landlord/tenant cases.
Danyika Howell
Danyika Howell is a US born activist, organizer, and youth advocate. Her interest in the African Diaspora blossomed when she was touring the Caribbean and South America and noticed the many Africans speaking French and Spanish. When her formal education failed to provide more learning about the true history of Africans across the Atlantic , she became more passionate about pursuing issues and discovering the many ways the African Diaspora impacts the world. She has also been involved in organizations such as Generation Action, Community Campaign to Prosecute Police, and a part of immigrant rights movements. She works at El Colegio Charter School in South Minneapolis working to build a strong bridge of relations and mutual understanding of all Africans, from the motherland to the rest of the world.