The Power of Collaboration

Dr. Ronald W. Bailey

Ronald W. Bailey is a 1965 graduate of Evans County History School in Claxton, GA, and a 1969 Phi Beta Kappa graduate with a BA in Liberal Arts (Cross-Cultural Studies) from Michigan State University’s Justin Morrill College. He holds a M.A. in Political Science from Stanford and a Ph.D. in Black Studies from Stanford, the first such degree awarded in the United States in 1980.  He has taught at Fisk University, Cornell, Northwestern, the University of Mississippi, and Northeastern University, where he chaired the Department of African-American Studies for eight years.  He also served as Vice President for Academic Affairs at South Carolina State University and Knoxville College, and as a senior scientist with the Education Development Center, Inc.  He is a Distinguished Senior Lecturer in Africana Studies and History at Savannah State University and served as Interim Chair of the Department of Political Science and Public Affairs in 2010-2011.

Terri L. Bailey

Terri L. Bailey is a diviner, healer, writer, life and empowerment coach, EFT practitioner, and community organizer currently based in Gainesville, Florida. She has a B.S. in Elementary Education from Bethune Cookman University, a M.A. in English and Creative Writing from Southern New Hampshire University, and a M.A. in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies from the University of Florida. She has over 30 years of experience working with women to help them empower themselves using various self-help tools and coaching techniques. She also founded the Bailey Learning and Arts Collective, Inc. The nonprofit organization focuses on creating socially responsible communities and leaders through a grassroots ideology and boots-on-the-ground action plans.

Dr. Uzi Baram

Uzi Baram is an Israelian Anthropologist born in Haifa, Israel. He received his B.A. in Anthropology at the State University of New York, later receiving his M.A. and Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of Massachusetts. The central focus of his research and teaching is on material culture and cultural landscapes organized by the scholarly critique of racism, a negation of the assumption that some are destined for limitations because of biology or birth. His publications include employing anthropology for the study of sultans and fellahin, Zionism and Palestinian nationalism, pioneers and indigenous peoples, workers and city founders, self-emancipated Africans and American expansionism in an anthropological consideration of social power. He received Professor Emeritus from the New College of Florida in 2023 and is currently the Director of Public Archaeology at Marie Selby Botanical Gardens.

Dr. Julian Chambliss

Julian C. Chambliss is a Professor of English and the Val Berryman Curator of History at the  MSU Museum  at Michigan State University. In addition, he is a co-director for the Department of English  Digital Humanities and Literary Cognition Lab  (DHLC) and a core participant in the MSU College of Arts & Letters’  Consortium for Critical Diversity in a Digital Age Research  (CEDAR).  An interdisciplinary scholar, his work is shaped by Black Digital Humanities and a Critical Afrofuturist framework that seeks to bridge teaching, scholarship, and service to understand space, place, and identity. His reader on Afrofuturism, Mapping Afrofuturism: Understanding Black Speculative Practice (2024) offers students a comprehensive exploration of Afrofuturism theory and practice. His co-edited primary document reader,  Cities Imagined: The African Diaspora in Media and History  (2018), highlights the differing ideologies informing our understanding of black space. He co-produced and directed  Afrofantastic: The Transformative World of Afrofuturism , a documentary exploring Afrofuturism for WKAR PBS.  He has worked on several exhibitions examining Afrofuturism and visual culture, including  Transfiguration: A Black Speculative Vision of Freedom  at Philip and Patricia Frost Art Museum at Florida International University and  A Past Unremembered: The Transformative Legacy of the Black Speculative Imagination  at the Zora Neale Hurston National Museum of Fine Arts. He was featured on the  Terrestrial Space  Panel at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, Claiming Space Symposium in 2022. Chambliss co-produced and hosted Every Tongue Got to Confess, a podcast examining communities of color from 2017 to 2022.  Every Tongue won the 2019 Hampton Dunn New Media Award from the  Florida Historical Society . In addition, he won the Hampton Dunn Internet Award in 2019 for  Advocated Recovered , a project that digitally reconstructed a gilded-age black newspaper in Central Florida.  He produced and hosted Reframing History, a podcast exploring humanities theory and practice in the United States. The second season of Reframing History inspired the publication of   Reframing Digital Humanities: Conversations with Digital Humanists  (2021), collecting conversations from leading DH scholars.

Dr. Amanda Concha-Holmes

Dr. Amanda Concha-Holmes is an applied visual and ecological anthropologist, director of I.R.I.E. Center (Innovative Research and Intercultural Education), and a Courtesy Affiliate Associate Lecturer with CAME (Center for Arts, Migration, and Entrepreneurship) out of the College of the Arts at the University of Florida. She received her B.A. in Foreign Languages at the Honors College of Florida, later receiving a M.A. in Latin American Studies and a Ph.D. in Anthropology. Her research focuses on decolonizing representations of African descendants and utilizing multimodal media to document the stories of underrepresented populations.  

Juan Concha-Holmes

Juan Concha-Homes is a professional photographer, translator, author, and web host. He received a B.S. in Agricultural Education and Communication from the University of Florida and a M.A. in Cultural Studies at the Universidad Andina Simón Bolívar. His academic and personal experiences in various countries led him to develop methodologies and educational resources to cultivate intercultural leadership skills. He specializes in web-based education and electronic publishing, utilizing videos and advanced course creation tools.

Dr. Anthony Dixon

Dr. Anthony E. Dixon is a historian and archivist native to Fort Valley, Georgia. He received a B.S. in History with a minor in African American Studies from Florida A&M University, a Master’s of Applied Social Science from Florida A&M University with a concentration in History, and his Ph.D. from Indiana University’s History Department where he majored in the African Diaspora. His research focuses on the Black Seminoles, the Second Seminole War, and the history of groups in the African diaspora in the state of Florida. He is also the Founder and President of Archival and Historical Research Associates.

Charles Eady

Charles Eady is a contemporary, mixed media artist and author who uses art to examine long-held beliefs about the south. Originally born in South Carolina, he currently lives in Ocala, Florida. Eady graduated from Claflin University with a B.A. in Art Education, serving as a teacher for about a decade before opening his first exhibit in 2013. His work includes scenes from the everyday life of free Blacks, incorporating historical documents that contextualize these stories.  

Dr. Elizabeth Carmel Hamilton

Dr. Elizabeth Carmel Hamilton is an assistant professor at Fort Valley State University and art historian whose research focuses on the visual culture of the African diaspora, feminism, and Afrofuturism. She completed her master’s and doctorate at the University of Florida’s School of Art and Art History, where she was a McKnight Doctoral Fellow. Before that, she received a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Wyoming. Her first book is Charting the Afrofuturist Imaginary in African American Art (Routledge), which is the winner of the Wyeth Foundation for American Art Publication Grant.

Professor Magdalena Lamarre

Magdalena Lamarre was a Professor of History and Sociology at Miami Dade College until her retirement in 2016. She earned a B.A. in History and Secondary Education from Hunter College, a M.A. in History from Stony Brook University, and did post-graduate work in Sociology and Education at Florida International University. Following her retirement, she has hosted several lectures concerning Florida’s history and the migration patterns of Afro-Caribbean peoples.

Dr. Jane Landers

Dr. Jane Landers is a historian and Professor of Colonial Latin America and the Atlantic World specializing in the history of Africans and their descendants in those worlds. She has consulted on a variety of archaeological projects, documentary films, websites, and museum exhibits related to the African Diaspora including Gracia Real de Santa Teresa de Mose, better known as Fort Mose, the first free black town in what is today the United States. Dr. Landers directs the Slave Societies Digital Archive hosted by the Jean and Alexander Heard Library at Vanderbilt which is preserving endangered ecclesiastical and secular documents related to slavery in the Atlantic World. She received her M.A. in Inter-American Studies at the University of Miami and a Ph.D. in Latin American Colonial History at the University of Florida.

Turbado Marabou

Turbado Marabou is a Traditional Healer, Storyteller, Folklorist, Visual Artist and Oral Historian for over 27 years . He received his B.S. at Florida A&M University and his M.F.A. in printmaking from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. According to Turbado, “Art reflects the human condition. It mirrors, defines, and interprets one’s culture, daily life, and spirituality. This is the premise upon which my works and life are based”. Turbado currently is a doctoral student at Florida State University

Dr. Asmeret Mehari

Dr. Mehari is an anthropologist from Eritrea, Horn of Africa. She received her B.A. in Archaeology from the University of Asmara, later earning her master’s and Ph.D. in Anthropology at the University of Florida. Her research focuses on the archaeological practices and pedagogies in East Africa.

Braxton Rae

Braxton Rae is a theatrical scholar, director, and performer. Rae’s main artistic goals are to foster a community within the arts that has a focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion. Rae is a Master of Fine Arts Candidate in Directing at the University of Texas and is currently a Visiting Assistant Professor of Devised Theatre and a Maker in Residence at the Center for Arts, Migration, and Entrepreneurship (CAME) at the University of Florida.

Kandice Rodriguez

Kandice Rodriguez is a freelance Animator. She received her B.A in Fine Arts in Animation at Savannah College of Art and Design. She has worked in the Animation industry for over ten years. She is skilled in Adobe After Effects, Adobe Photoshop, 3D modeling, and Autodesk Maya

Rik Stevenson

Dr. Rik Stevenson is an Africana Studies scholar. His primary area of research focuses on the role of suicide by drowning as a form a resistance during the Transatlantic Slave Trade. He is a certified scuba diver and has done multiple underwater expeditions in search of sunken slave vessels. Dr. Stevenson holds, two master's degrees from Fuller Theological Seminary, a Doctorate in Divinity from the Southern California School of Ministry and a PhD from Michigan State University.  He serves presently as an Assistant Instructional Professor at the University of Florida. Dr. Stevenson is also the CEO of RLS2 Consulting, a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion company that conducts seminars on Cultural Competency.

Cynthia Wilson-Graham

Cynthia Wilson-Grahm is an author, freelance photographer, community leader, and educator. She received her B.A. in Human Service at St. Leo University and a M.A. in Education a Ashford University. Wilsom-Graham coauthored the book “Remembering Paradise Park: Tourism and Segregation at Silver Springs”. The book was an exploration into the history of Paradise Park, a tourist attraction less than a mile away from Silver Springs that was open from 1949 to 1969.