Contributors

Quadir Chouteau, a first-year college student at Louisiana State University, is a warrior-scholar, artist, and athlete from Sacramento. He has been rapping and performing since the age of four and is known for his charismatic personality and stellar performances. Quadir belongs to New Home Missionary Baptist Church where he serves as an active member of the drama ministry and youth choir. While serving in these ministries, he starred as Terrence Roberts of the “Little Rock Nine” and reenacted President Obama’s inaugural speech in the play “The Dream Team,” which debuted at the Crocker Art Museum Black History Month celebration. Quadir also starred as Young Jason & Kid in the autobiographical play, “We’ve Been Sentenced,” for which he received the Best Debut Actor award. He placed in the top three in the SAYS (Sacramento Area Youth Speaks) MC Olympics and received a standing ovation at the California State Fair for his lead rap performance during his choir’s set. In 2016, Quadir was recognized by the White House for his outstanding achievements in academics. He is a two-time champion in the 12u Bay Valley division with the Burbank Jr. Titans. He recently received the student-athlete award at Luther Burbank High in recognition of his 3.6 GPA and graduated top of his class in 2022 in the International Baccalaureate (IB) Program.

Kenneth Duncan Jr. comes from a strong line of leaders. One of his grandfathers was a professional boxer in San Francisco, and the other was a general in the U.S. Army. Whether it was their values such as dedication, discipline, sacrifice, and a sense of civic responsibility or their service to others, Kenneth had plenty of great examples to emulate.

An athlete from a very young age, Kenneth eventually landed at historic Merritt College in Oakland and the College of Alameda where he earned his associate of arts degree and played on the basketball team. From his time at the College of Alameda, Kenneth earned an athletic scholarship to attend Wilberforce University in Ohio, which is the oldest, private, Black-owned institution in the country. There he received his bachelor’s degree in psychology. Kenneth is HBCU proud!

Professionally, Kenneth has worked in the nonprofit world for more than ten years. He began his career with the Boys and Girls Clubs of Greater Sacramento where he served New Helvetia and Seavey Circle public housing in Sacramento, which is now known as Marina Vista/Alder Grove. There he was able to mentor hundreds of young people and to build relationships in the community, becoming a trusted leader and advocate. His journey in Sacramento has included community organizing in Oak Park and Del Paso Heights through the BCLC. Kenneth has also worked for the Greater Sacramento Urban League, Roberts Family Development Center, and the Anti-Recidivism Coalition. In addition to serving the community through long-standing organizations in Sacramento, Kenneth has founded his own nonprofit organization, called Ball Out Academy, where he provides mentorship, leadership development, workshops, and training through the lens of athletic development programs. Kenneth plans to continue his service to the community as he expands the reach and impact of Ball Out Academy.

Kindra F. Montgomery-Block enters her second season as the vice president of diversity, inclusion, and social impact with the Sacramento Kings, following more than twenty years in community impact work. Before joining the Kings, Montgomery-Block led a number of initiatives at Sierra Health Foundation including the Black Child Legacy Campaign and Steering Committee on the Reduction of African American Child Deaths, helping dramatically lower health disparity across ethnicities and founding a new community and economic development department.

Montgomery-Block holds a master of public administration degree from Golden Gate University, a BA in political science from the University of California, Riverside, and a certificate in business communication from Harvard University. She has twice been named one of Northern California’s Exceptional Women of Color by HUB Magazine and is the recipient of honors from Women of Color in Maternal Health, NAACP, American Association of Public Administrators, Comstock’s Magazine, and the Greater Sacramento Urban League. She serves on a statewide Black maternal health roundtable, the California Black Freedom Fund Advisory Board, and the Sacramento County Mental Health Board of Directors. Montgomery-Block resides in Sacramento with her husband and daughter, Samone.

Damany Morris Fisher, a native of Sacramento, earned an MA and PhD in history from the University of California, Berkeley. His research investigates the origins of residential segregation in Sacramento and the fair housing movement of the 1950s–1960s. A dedicated educator, Fisher has built a career working in service of students in secondary and higher ed settings. He taught history at Mt. San Antonio College in Walnut, California; served as a member of the teaching faculty at Phillips Academy Andover in Andover, Massachusetts; and lectured inside the California State Prison Solano and the Correctional Medical Facility in Vacaville, California, as part of the Solano Community College’s Corrections Education Program. Fisher currently works as a management consulting manager for Accenture.

David Blanco Gonzalez was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1981 and moved to the Oak Park neighborhood of Sacramento when he was three years old. He began drawing as a young child, tracing character images he would receive from his father in prison. By his teenage years, hip-hop was influencing everything in his life, and he was heavily into graffiti art. In his twenties he became fascinated with the art of tattooing and got an apprenticeship at a local tattoo shop where he first put paint to canvas. Drawing inspiration from Justin Bua, Andy Warhol, and, most of all, Jean Michel Basquiat, Gonzalez created his first collection called “Legacy” to pay respect to the victims of third-party homicide in Sacramento.

Heather Gonzalez currently serves as a director for the Mutual Assistance Network. With more than fifteen years of service within the greater Sacramento area, she has demonstrated an unwavering resolve to rectify historical and continuing organizational, institutional, and systemic inequities, with an emphasis on racial equity. She considers her life’s work to be rooted in antiracism action by way of education and system change. Over the years she has functioned as an organizational leader and a co-conspirator, aligned in values of antiracism and social justice to bridge systemic gaps within organizations, systems, and institutions. Gonzalez’s professional focus lies in the fields of child abuse and neglect prevention, violence prevention, racial equity, and family support services, and she has specialized concentrations in the practice of harm reduction, substance abuse, and addictions treatment. Her most important role is being a wife to her amazing husband and mother to her two beautiful children.

Patrice Hill is a poet and celebrated teaching artist, with more than two decades of experience teaching in urban, suburban, and exurban classrooms. Hill currently serves as the director of Sacramento Area Youth Speaks (SAYS), which strives to change the world through education and empowerment. SAYS is recognized as a national leader in social justice-based arts education organizations, connecting the university, K–12 schools, and the community. Hill specializes in establishing distinguished partnerships between the university and school districts, providing direct service to students, developing culturally relevant curriculum, and facilitating high-level professional development trainings for teacher + youth practitioners. Hill was recently honored with a California Senate Resolution for empowering youth through poetry and social justice, while playing a pivotal role in establishing Sacramento as the poetry capital of California. Patrice Hill’s greatest victory is serving and standing alongside the beautiful and brilliant youth in Sacramento and beyond.

Patrice Hill identifies as a Black, cisgender female.

Adiyah Ma’at Obolu is a current senior at Inderkum High School. She is passionate about racial justice and how equity can be actualized in education. She is a part of many organizations that bring these challenges alive: she is the chief of staff of the College to Career Ready (CCR) team, the president of the Black Student Union (BSU), and student body president. Adiyah is an avid poet and uses this art form to inspire and heal. As a social justice warrior, she actively yearns to reimagine society through the lens of radical love.

Adiyah Obolu identifies as a Black, cisgender female.

Amaya Noguera-Mujica is a program officer at the Sierra Health Foundation. She has extensive experience in education, community organizing, and culturally responsive program development for historically underserved communities. Noguera-Mujica is committed to fighting injustice and advocating for communities that have been marginalized and disadvantaged. She currently oversees the Community Responsive Wellness Program in Sacramento, which centers holistic health and wellness for healing in serving Black Communities. She received her BA degree in educational theory from New School University in 2007 and has received national acclaim and awards for her work as a writer and organizer, and for her commitment to community service and social change. A dedicated mother, Noguera-Mujica has had opportunities to expand on this work in the Caribbean and Central and South America.

Ijeoma Ononuju earned a PhD in education, with an emphasis on language, literacy, and culture. A 2010–2011 McNair cohort scholar, he has a devotion to youth, families, and community. Born and raised in Vallejo, California, Ononuju continues to positively affect and inform the educational experiences of young people through his research and service. He is currently the assistant director of the Graduate School of Education at Touro University, California. Ononuju also co-created BlackademX, a weekly podcast engaging educators across the nation in critical dialogue about academic success for African American scholars.

Vanessa Segundo is a research and evaluation associate consultant at Mirror Group LLC, where she designs culturally responsive and racially equitable evaluations and strategies to support organizational transformation. Before becoming a consultant, she worked at the intersection of student affairs, research, and teaching for twelve years. Segundo is a proud daughter of immigrant parents, a first-generation college graduate, and Mami to two beloved little humans. She is from Chicago, a city that fuels her passion to design child-centered futures. Segundo received her BA from the University of Illinois at Chicago, her MsEd from Northern Illinois University, and her PhD in education from the University of California, Davis.

Segundo identifies as a Latina, cisgender female.

Vajra M. Watson is a scholar activist, faculty director, and professor of educational leadership and racial justice in the College of Education at Sacramento State University. Watson has more than twenty years of experience as a teacher, community organizer, and researcher. She is the founder of Sacramento Area Youth Speaks (SAYS), an award-winning program that pairs community-based poet-mentor educators and teachers to develop grassroots pedagogies that reclaim and reimagine schooling. She is the author of three books, Learning to Liberate: Community-Based Solutions to the Crisis in Urban Education (2012), Transformative Schooling: Towards Racial Equity in Education (2018), and The Soul of Learning: Rituals of Resistance, Magnetic Pedagogy and Living Justice (coauthored with Mary Keator, 2022). She has published dozens of peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters. Watson serves on several boards, including United Playaz in San Francisco (board president), People’s Think Tank, and Kingmakers of Oakland (board cochair). Watson is a recipient of Sacramento’s 40 under 40 Leadership Award, the California Educational Research Association’s Annual Award, the Congressional Woman of the Year Award, and the American Educational Research Association’s Social Impact Award and Social Justice Leadership Award. She is originally from Berkeley, California, and was deeply affected by the courses she took in the Black and Xicanx Studies Departments at Berkeley High School in the mid-1990s. In tenth grade her final exam question was, “What are you doing to stop and/or curtail the spread of white supremacy in yourself, community, and this world?” This question still shapes her path and purpose. Watson received her BA from UC Berkeley and her doctorate in administration, planning, and social policy from the Graduate School of Education at Harvard University.

Watson identifies as a white, cisgender female.

Lawrence “Torry” Winn is an associate professor of Teaching in Education in the School of Education at the University of California, Davis, and the cofounder and executive director of the Transformative Justice in Education (TJE) Center. His program of research examines race, critical consciousness, and social capital in out-of-school learning spaces and transformative justice pedagogy and practice within schools. A trained ethnographer, Winn is interested in the relationship and dynamics between historically marginalized communities of color and schools, nonprofits, and government entities such as police, elected officials, and policy makers. He has more than two decades of experience in the nonprofit sector, including work with Casey Family Programs and the Annie E. Casey Foundation. Winn was also a member of the Race to Equity Team (R2E) that published Race to Equity Report, a comprehensive study of racial disparities in education, criminal justice, the workforce, and health care for Black and white families in Dane County, Wisconsin. He is the coauthor of articles appearing in Theory into Practice, Race and Social Problems, and Adolescent Research Review.

Torry Winn identifies as a Black, cisgender male.

Maisha T. Winn is the associate dean and Chancellor’s Leadership Professor in the School of Education at the University of California, Davis, where she cofounded and codirects (with Dr. Lawrence “Torry” Winn) the Transformative Justice in Education (TJE) Center. Much of Professor Winn’s early scholarship examines how young people create literate identities through performing literacy and how teachers who are “practitioners of the craft” serve as “soul models” to emerging writers. Most recently, she has examined how restorative justice theory can be leveraged to teach across disciplines using a transformative justice teacher education framework. Winn was named an American Educational Research Association Fellow in 2016. In 2014 she received the William T. Grant Foundation Distinguished Fellowship and was named the American Educational Research Association Early Career Award recipient in 2012. Winn served as the Jeannette K. Watson Distinguished Visiting Professor in the Humanities at Syracuse University for the 2019–2020 academic year. She is the author of several books including Writing in Rhythm: Spoken Word Poetry in Urban Schools (published under her maiden name “Fisher”); Black Literate Lives: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives (published under her maiden name “Fisher”); and Girl Time: Literacy, Justice, and the School-to-Prison Pipeline; she is the coeditor of Humanizing Research: Decolonizing Qualitative Research (with Django Paris). Winn’s most recent books are Justice on Both Sides: Transforming Education through Restorative Justice and Restorative Justice in the English Language Arts Classroom (with Hannah Graham and Rita Alfred). She is also the author of numerous articles in peer-reviewed journals.

Maisha Winn identifies as a Black, cisgender female.