A. Abugo Ongiri is an African American scholar/educator. They live in Portland, Oregon with two tuxedo cats and a well-loved and highly chaotic garden. Along with their wife and four kids, they form a multi-religious family of Rasta, Jewish, and Unitarian Universalist spiritualities. Their academic background is in African American literature and film, global African film, and Ethnic Studies. Their body of work includes the book Spectacular Blackness: The Cultural Politics of the Black Power Movement and the Search for a Black Aesthetic, numerous articles on topics ranging from Perez Prado and Mambo-mania to foster parenthood, and forthcoming projects such as a graphic novel about and gentrification, celebrity, and police violence, and a book about the Queen of Funk Betty Davis.

Ida Aronson is a Queer, Two-Spirit non-binary trans person. They are a recent climate migrant, having moved from their southeastern Louisiana tribal areas around Houma, to higher ground two hours away on the western side of the Atchafalaya Basin. They now steward a small farmstead with their spouse- Raccoon Oak Farm. Their focus is on their communities: on the uplifting of, the education around and for, and the support and survival of. They believe in radical love, bodily autonomy, the power of art to enact social change, and working towards collective freedom. More info at: https://rynufe.carrd.co

Iris Afantchao is an interdisciplinary archivist, writer, library worker and memory worker who can be found in western Massachusetts or Connecticut. Living with invisible disabilities as a Black, queer, genderfluid person drives their desire to find opportunities for community care and question widely accepted public history. Iris largely works to connect people with access points to underrepresented histories through research assistance. Pursuing a BA in Government with an Archives concentration at Smith College catalyzed this historywork formally, followed by a Graduate Certificate in Community-Based Librarianship from Drexel University and a Master’s in Library and Information Studies from the University of Alabama.

Toni Garcia-Butler (he/they) is a poet and community artist. He believes artists play a unique role as cultural historians. As a poet, Toni strives to connect with others through the intricacies of lived experience. Through facilitation, Toni encourages self-empowerment through DIY publishing, personal narrative, and creative joy. Their work centers their people: Black, Filipino, southern, queer, and everyone existing within the intersections. Find Toni published in Closet Cases: Queers on What We Wear (under former name), {new words press}, beestung mag, and several independent & self-made zines. You can also find him on Instagram (@tgbpoetry), Bluesky (@diybody), and tgbpoetry.com.

TBA