Oct 17: Centering Black Lives

Saturday, October 17, 2020 – 1 pm-3 pm PDT

Thanks to all who attended and participated. This event recording will soon be on our YouTube channel.

Photo is close-up of Ki looking at camera with one index finger outstretched touching their lower lip. They are wearing a blue sweatshirt and a grey beanie cap with lighter and darker short curls coming out from under the beanie. They are holding up a red book cover with “Angela Y. Davis” in white capital letters, “Freedom is a Constant Struggle” in black capitals, and “Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations” in white capitals.

Akiea “Ki” Gross (they/them) – Panelist

Ki is an abolitionist early educator, coach and creative entrepreneur working towards liberation with their pedagogy Woke Kindergarten. All power to the little people!

Woke Kindergarten

Angela Harris (Black woman with caramel colored skin, shoulder length Black wavy hair with a side part, square framed Blue glasses, and red lipstick) standing in front of a microphone reciting the poem, “Hey Black Child” by Euseni Ugene Perkins at the Black Lives Matter Week of Action in our Schools Poetry and Open Mic Night in Milwaukee, WI

Angela Harris (she/her) – Panelist

Angela Harris is a member of the Black Lives Matter at School National Steering Committee, Chairwoman of the Black Educators Caucus MKE, and a first-grade teacher at Dr. Martin Luther King Jr African American Immersion School. As a Black educator she understands the urgency of centering the voices, lives, and experiences of Black students in curriculum, classroom and community.

Black Lives Matter at School

Belinda Bellinger (she/they/fam/folx) – Panelist

Belinda Bellinger is a co parent, organizer, writer, performer, and 9-year veteran middle school teacher-leader. They are also a Black Teacher Project (BTP) Fellow, and Parent Leadership Action Network (Bay Area PLAN) Teacher Fellow where they think a lot about liberatory learning spaces, transformative family engagement, and speaking truth to power.

Black Teacher Project & Bay Area Plan

Desiree McSwain-Mims, 2018 on a megaphone at an OUSD community board meeting speaking on behalf of the immediate need to eliminate the Oakland Schools Police Department. She is wearing a Black shirt that says "B.O.S.S Bettering Our School System"

Desiree McSwaine-Mims (she/her) – Panelist

Desiree McSwaine-Mims is a mother, Black Organizing Project member leader and Communications Coordinator.

Black Organizing Project

CieraJevae Gordon – Special Guest Performer

CieraJevae is a Richmond Native serving her community as a teaching artist, a healer, a passed Poet Laureate, writer, activist, and scholar. She reps her ancestors, & shines light on the lived experiences of the divinity in Black women & girls through poetry and performance. She is the published author of her new collection of poems, Unto Ivy’s Rib, as well as the author of two chapbooks, Testimonies of Richmond, and Incarcerated Words.

Link to her book!

Photo of Farima Pour-Khorshid smiling with caramel colored skin, black and red hair and her head is tilted toward the right.

Dr. Farima Pour-Khorshid (she/her) – MC

Farima Pour-Khorshid is a former elementary school teacher and now serves as a professor at the University of San Francisco. She is also a grassroots organizer with the Teachers 4 Social Justice and a board member for the Education for Liberation Network, the Abolitionist Teaching Network, Abundant Beginnings and Quetzal Education Consulting.

Photo of Chela Delgado, a mixed Black teacher in her classroom, looking off to the side in thought.

Dr. Chela Delgado (she/her) – Moderator

Chela Delgado was born and raised in Oakland, California, and is a graduate, parent, and teacher of OUSD. She has been teaching high school for over ten years, and likes to use critical theory, discussion and skits in her classroom.

Justice for Oakland Students (J4OS) & Black Student Reparations