Tufara Waller Muhammad, Carissa Rodgers, April Caddell, Jocephus Martin, Meredith Martin-Moats and  Bryan Moats

During this session we intend to share about the ways that our MS/AR Based Team of Artist and Culture Organizers have worked to fortify the efforts that include Participatory Action, POP Ed and Cultural Organizing in Southern BIPOC in partnership with the Surdna Foundation.

Tufara Waller Muhammad is a multi-disciplinary artist, political strategist, popular educator and cultural organizer. Tufara has worked for over 25 years at the nexus of art, faith and justice in the US South and Global South. She draws on six generations of her multiracial familial lineage of civically-engaged artists, organizers, and spiritual leaders animated by faith and a commitment to justice, healing, and transformation of systems and structures within communities,
institutions, and governmental entities.

Rev. Carissa Rodgers is a transformation strategist, educator, artist, cultural organizer and spiritual director. Much of her experience intersects faith, art and cultural storytelling, strategic planning, community development and institutional advancement with transformation. She is committed to creating change through radically imagining and intentionally designing new pathways that lead to true liberation in all its forms, for all people.

Meredith Moats is a researcher, cultural worker, writer, radio producer, oral historian, gardener, and caregiver living in Yell County Arkansas. Her work focuses on re/weaving connections across generations, building and supporting place-based work that is focused on a deep understanding of land and community history, working across divides, situating and
elevating caregiving as central to community work, and getting hands in the dirt. She holds an M.A in Folk Studies from Western Kentucky University and is the cofounder of the McElroy House: Organization for Cultural Resources [1] located in Dardanelle, Arkansas.

Bryan Moats is from the San Joaquin Valley of California but has made rural central Arkansas home for the last 20 years. He is a designer, illustrator, caregiver, volunteer fire fighter, and mealworm farmer.

April Caddell was raised in Tuskegee, Alabama. She attended Spelman College, where she served as a Bonner Scholar for Community Service and obtained her MA in Women's Studies and her Ph.D. in the Social and Cultural Foundations of Education. April is also a certified yoga teacher who also enjoys writing and dancing. Dr. Caddell currently works at Stillman College as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Social Sciences.

Jocephus "Skipp" Martin is a son and a father from Jackson, MS. He tells stories and is the documentation lead for the PAR Project. Jocephus loves black people intensely and intentionally.