Conference Schedule

Friday, October 24 — Day One

Welcome + Intro to Conference — 4:30 p.m. (Dewing 103)

Opening Remarks + Kalamazoo Cluster & Film Screening

• Film: BODEWADMI NDAW
• Discussion & Q&A: Jason Wesaw & Davis Henderson — 5:15–6:30 p.m.

Saturday, October 25 — Day Two

Location: Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership

Plenary Address (St. Louis) — 10:00–11:00 a.m.
Jamala Rogers, Executive Director, Organization for Black Struggle

Panel One: History and Preservation — 11:15 a.m.–12:45 p.m.
Moderator: Dr. Christina Carroll (Associate Professor, History)
Panelists: Lulu Urdiales (San Diego), Ben Looker (St. Louis), Amber Mitchell (NOLA/Detroit), Dylan AT Miner (Ann Arbor)

Lunch with Discussion & Reflection — 12:45–2:00 p.m.

Panel Two: The Urgency of the Local — 2:00–3:30 p.m.
Moderator: Dr. Espelencia Baptiste (Associate Professor, Anthropology)
Panelists: Jazmin Ortiz-Ash (Kalamazoo), Macrina Cardenas Montaño (Tijuana & Mexicali), Kenlana Ferguson (Kalamazoo), Sashae Mitchell (Kalamazoo)

Panel Three: Cultivating Community — 3:45–5:15 p.m.
Moderator: Marquise Griffin (Associate Director, Mary Jane Underwood Stryker Center for Civic Engagement)
Panelists: Gloria Ward (NOLA), Hristina Petrovska (Kalamazoo), Jackie Mitchell (Kalamazoo), shane bernardo (Detroit)

Dinner Downtown — 6:30 p.m. (Bell’s Eccentric Café; open to all attendees; not provided by grant)

Sunday, October 26 — Day Three

Location: Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership

Digital Humanities & Student Research Exhibition — 9:00–10:00 a.m.

Plenary Address (New Orleans) — 10:00–11:00 a.m.
Monica Kelly, People for Public Art

Place-Based Art Workshop — 11:15 a.m.–12:30 p.m.
Monica Kelly (People for Public Art) + Destine Price (FIRE)

Closing Remarks — 12:30 p.m.

Conference Participants & Partner Bios

Jazmin Ortiz-Ash is from Mexicali, Baja California, known as the city that captured the Sun. She is the Coordinator of the Kalamazoo County ID Program. She holds a Law Degree from Mexico and is pursuing a Master’s Degree in Public Administration at Western Michigan University. She has more than ten years of work experience at the Consulate of Mexico in Calexico, California, and Detroit, Michigan, and later as an Immigration Paralegal for approximately two years.

Macrina Cardenas es la coordinadora de la Coalición Pro Defensa Del Migrante. Trabajando por más de treinta años en favor de los derechos de los migrantes tanto en México como en Estados Unidos.

Benjamin Looker is an Associate Professor in the American Studies Department at Saint Louis University, with a PhD in American Studies from Yale University. His publications include the book A Nation of Neighborhoods: Imagining Cities, Communities, and Democracy in Postwar America, winner of four “best book” awards including the American Studies Association’s John Hope Franklin Prize. Looker has also written widely about twentieth-century arts, activism, and urban experiences in his current home city of St. Louis.

Amber N. Mitchell is a public historian and educator currently serving as the founding Curator of Black History at The Henry Ford. As a public historian, Amber strives to empower communities of color to tell their own stories in cultural institutions and beyond, while transforming nonprofit structures into accessible reflections of our communities. Before joining The Henry Ford staff, Amber worked at Whitney Plantation, the National WWII Museum, and the American Association for State and Local History, among other spaces in the Midwest. She holds a master’s degree in History from Indiana University and a bachelor’s in History from Wayne State University in Detroit, MI.

Lulu Urdiales is a passionate community archivist with a strong background in exhibition coordination and archival care. She holds her MLIS degree from San José State University and a B.A. in History of Art and Visual Culture from UC Santa Cruz. In her current role as archivist for the Chicano Park Museum and Community Center, Lulu’s work focuses on preserving and showcasing the rich cultural narratives of the Chicanx experience. Drawing from a diverse skill set in archival research, curation, and digital preservation, her goal is to create meaningful, accessible experiences that connect people to their heritage.

Kenlana Ferguson is the Executive Director of the Michigan Transformation Collective, a Kalamazoo-based organization advancing racial healing, narrative change, and systems transformation through collective impact. With over 20 years of experience at the intersection of mental health and racial equity, she has served in leadership roles across higher education, philanthropy, and the nonprofit sector. Kenlana’s work bridges strategy and healing practice to transform communities through truth, love, and justice. She holds a Ph.D. and master’s degree in counseling psychology and a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice from Western Michigan University. Kenlana is deeply committed to cultivating spaces where people and communities can heal, thrive, and lead together.

Jackie Mitchell is the founder and manager of Urban Exposure Initiative. She is a micro-urban farmer who participates in community garden design and consultation. Jackie focuses on the reconnection to peace with Earth and all its healing properties, as well as the gift of life amongst all the noise of the world.

Amy Buskirk is the Food Systems Education Program Manager for Kalamazoo Valley Community College’s ValleyHub. This food hub serves as “an access point for the whole community, making it feasible for local food producers to sell – and for nearby retail and institutional markets to buy – locally.”

Jamala Rogers spent her childhood growing up in a working-class neighborhood with her four siblings in Kansas City, Missouri. She came of political and cultural age during the tumultuous 1960s and became active in the Black student movement—and she’s been organizing and advocating ever since.

Jamala has devoted all of her adult life to advocating for a community that is child-centered, believing in the African proverb that if it’s good for the children, it’s good for the community. Her fight has always been to celebrate and protect the human rights of all people regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, or religion. Her lifelong activism has focused on dismantling barriers of racism, homophobia, and patriarchy while advancing justice, equality, and peace.

She is a featured columnist for the award-winning St. Louis American newspaper, serves on the editorial board of BlackCommentator.com, and contributes regularly to Capital City Hues (Madison, WI) and the LA Progressive. Jamala is the author of The Best of the Way I See It and Ferguson Is America: Roots of Rebellion. She hosts the weekly radio program Voices from the Battlefield on Black Radio Hall of Fame and co-hosts Black Work Talk with Convergence Magazine. Learn more at jamalarogers.com.

Gloria Ward lives in New Orleans, Louisiana, where she grows her own food and teaches sustainable living practices to local youth. Passionate about holistic living, she believes that “if you can’t touch with love, don’t touch at all.” Throughout her life, Gloria has worked with children, the homeless, and the elderly through numerous nonprofit initiatives. She and the Divine Foundation organize monthly community meals for New Orleans residents in need.

About Gloria’s Garden: Located in the historic Tremé neighborhood at 2111 Dumaine Street, Gloria’s Garden offers youth programs in gardening, cooking, sewing, jewelry making, music, yoga, and meditation. Through its nonprofit arm, Developing Young Entrepreneurs, the garden empowers youth (ages 6–25) to gain entrepreneurial skills, create vending opportunities, and express themselves in safe, nurturing spaces.

Monica Kelly is a muralist, illustrator, and light artist based in New Orleans. She is the founder and Executive Director of People for Public Art, a nonprofit organization she created in 2020 to promote collaboration between artists and communities. She believes that the best public art is born from dialogue, community participation, and shared histories.

About People for Public Art: The organization funds, creates, and documents public art in New Orleans and beyond. As an artist-run and community-informed initiative, People for Public Art champions projects rooted in social justice and committed to preserving stories that might otherwise be silenced.

shane bernardo is a co-founder of Food As Healing, a social movement grounded in ancestral and Earth-based traditions that nurture our identities, health, and sense of belonging. Based in Detroit, Michigan, shane is a grower, anti-oppression facilitator, storyteller, and cultural organizer who uses food and the stories embedded within it as tools for healing and decolonization.

Destiné Price-Willis (She/They) was born in Kalamazoo, Michigan and raised between Kalamazoo and metro Detroit. Destiné is a multimedia artist, writer, youth advocate, and healer who enjoys writing short fiction and poetry. They currently serve as the Executive Director of Fire Historical and Cultural Arts Collaborative, where they once participated as a youth and later as a program contractor.

Destiné’s work spans community and youth development, including roles as Volunteer Coordinator at Read and Write Kalamazoo, Youth Advocacy Consultant at KYD Network, and delegate of the International Congress of Youth Voices. They are also a sound therapy practitioner who offers sound bath healing experiences. As a parent of three, Destiné continues to show up as a critical lover in community spaces—an artist, advocate, and mother dedicated to healing and empowerment.