The 1619 Project Education Conference (2023)

IBRAM X. KENDI

Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities at Boston University, and the founding director of the Boston University Center for Antiracist Research

Ibram X. Kendi is the Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities at Boston University, and the founding director of the Boston University Center for Antiracist Research. He is a contributing writer at The Atlantic and a CBS News racial justice contributor.  

Dr. Kendi is the author of many highly acclaimed books including Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America, which won the National Book Award for Nonfiction, making him the youngest author to win that award. He had also produced five #1 New York Times bestsellers, including How to Be an Antiracist; Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You, co-authored with Jason Reynolds; and Antiracist Baby, illustrated by Ashley Lukashevsky. In 2020, Time magazine named Dr. Kendi one of the 100 Most Influential People in the world. He was awarded a 2021 MacArthur Fellowship, popularly known as the Genius Grant. His latest book, co-authored with Nic Stone, is How to Be a (Young) Antiracist.

NIKOLE HANNAH-JONES

Knight Chair in Race and Journalism at the Cathy Hughes School of Communications at Howard University and founder of the Center for Journalism and Democracy

Nikole Hannah-Jones writes for The New York Times Magazine as a domestic correspondent focusing on racial injustice. Her reporting has been honored with a National Magazine Award, a Peabody Award, and a Polk Award. She attended the University of Notre Dame and graduated with degrees in history and African-American studies before moving on to complete her master's in journalism and mass communication at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

MARTHA S. JONES

Society of Black Alumni Presidential Professor, Professor of History, Professor at the SNF Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins University

Professor Martha S. Jones is the Society of Black Alumni Presidential Professor, Professor of History, and a Professor at the SNF Agora Institute at The Johns Hopkins University. She is a legal and cultural historian whose work examines how Black Americans have shaped the story of American democracy. Professor Jones is the author of Vanguard: How Black Women Broke Barriers, Won the Vote, and Insisted on Equality for All (2020), selected as one of Time's 100 must-read books for 2020. Her 2018 book, Birthright Citizens: A History of Race and Rights in Antebellum America (2018), was the winner of the Organization of American Historians Liberty Legacy Award (best book in civil rights history), the American Historical Association Littleton-Griswold Prize (best book in American legal history), the American Society for Legal History John Phillip Reid book award (best book in Anglo-American legal history) and the Baltimore City Historical Society Scholars honor for 2020.

DONNALIE JAMNAH

Senior Program Manager, K-12 Education at the Pulitzer Center

Donnalie Jamnah is a Senior Education Program Manager for the Pulitzer Center’s education team. They manage several programs including the 1619 Educator Network. DJ joined the Pulitzer Center team in 2021 after years working as an instructional coach for teachers in K-12 classrooms. Prior to instructional coaching, DJ taught 10th grade English Language Arts.

DJ has a Masters in Educational Technology from University of Arkansas at Fayetteville and two Bachelors degrees in Psychology and Creative Writing from Columbia University in the City of New York. They are passionate about any work that is creative, purposeful, and committed to the pursuit of equity.

TIM SEIBLES

National Endowment for the Arts Fellow and Provincetown Fine Arts Center Fellow

Tim Seibles, former Poet Laureate of Virginia, is an NEA fellow as well as a Provincetown Fine Arts Center fellow. He is the author of seven books of poetry including Fast Animal, which was a finalist for the 2012 National Book Award and winner of the Theodore Roethke Memorial Poetry Prize.This was followed by One Turn Around The Sun in 2017. His new and selected collection, Voodoo Libretto, was released by Etruscan Press in 2022.

A. VAN JORDAN

Professor of Creative Writing, Modernist & Contemporary Poetry, and Film at Stanford University

A. Van Jordan is the author of four collections: Rise, which won the PEN/Oakland Josephine Miles Award (Tia Chucha Press, 2001); M-A-C-N-O-L-I-A, (2005), which was listed as one the Best Books of 2005 by The London Times; Quantum Lyrics, (2007); and The Cineaste, (2013), W.W. Norton & Co. Jordan has been awarded a Whiting Writers Award, an Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, and a Pushcart Prize. He is also a recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship (2007), a United States Artists Fellowship (2009), and a Lannan Literary Award in Poetry (2015). His forthcoming book, When I Waked, I Cried to Dream Again, will be released in June of 2023 (W.W. Norton & Co). He is a Professor in the Department of English at Stanford University.

CORNELIUS EADY

Professor of English, and Hodges Chair of Excellence at the University of Tenn. Knoxville

Poet/Playwright/Songwriter and Cave Canem Co-Founder Cornelius Eady was born in Rochester, NY in 1954, and is Professor of English, and Hodges Chair of Excellence at the University of Tenn. Knoxville. He is the author of several poetry collections, including Victims of the Latest Dance Craze, winner of the 1985 Lamont Prize; The Gathering of My Name, nominated for the 1992 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry; Brutal Imagination, and Hardheaded Weather. He wrote the libretto to Diedra Murray’s opera Running Man, which was short listed for the Pulitzer Prize in Theatre, and his verse play Brutal Imagination won the Oppenheimer Prize for the best first play from an American Playwright in 2001. His work has been featured on NPR, BBC Radio 4 and the PBS Newshour. His awards include Fellowships from the NEA, the Guggenheim Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation, and was The Miller Family Endowed Chair in Literature and Writing and Professor in English and Theater at The University of Missouri-Columbia. From 2021-2022 he served as Interim Director at Poets House, a poetry library located in New York City.

KIMBERLEY ANNECE HENDERSON

Digital Curator, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture

Kimberly Annece Henderson is a historical researcher, curator, and author based in New York City. Her work centers genealogy and Black American lineages through archival photography and historical preservation, as seen in her Instagram project, @Emalineandthem. She currently facilitates digital projects for the New York Public Library's Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem, and her curatorial work is featured in the 1619 Project book, A New Origin Story. In March 2023, Penguin Random House will publish her first lyrical picture book entitled, Dear Yesteryear.

TIM SEIBLES

National Endowment for the Arts Fellow and Provincetown Fine Arts Center Fellow

Tim Seibles, former Poet Laureate of Virginia, is an NEA fellow as well as a Provincetown Fine Arts Center fellow.  He is the author of seven books of poetry including Fast Animal, which was a finalist for the 2012 National Book Award and winner of the Theodore Roethke Memorial Poetry Prize. This was followed by One Turn Around The Sun in 2017.  His new and selected collection, Voodoo Libretto, was released by Etruscan Press in 2022.