Cultural organizer and social impact strategist specializing in rural movement building, cultural rights and memory, and cultural sustainability.

I was raised in Farmville, Virginia, where my family were litigants in the U.S. Supreme Court's 1964 Griffin decision outlawing local "massive resistance” to school desegregation. A half-century later, I had the honor of directing the opening of the Moton Museum's national award-winning permanent exhibition on my community's revolutionary, student-led, Civil Rights-era activism.

Throughout my career, I’ve partnered with communities, policymakers, and media to advance place-based learning and power building — previously with the General Assembly to create Virginia’s Black, Indigenous, & People of Color Historic Preservation Fund and as a co-founder of William & Mary’s Lemon Project. I formerly managed strategic initiatives and partnerships for our state affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). More recently, I collaborated regionally with local organizers, activists, and other civic leaders to co-design and successfully launch one of the first major, multimillion-dollar philanthropic programs in Virginia devoted to social change movement building.

I’m currently a national advisor to the Out(sider) Preservation Initiative and a Civic Partnership Fellow at Monticello UNESCO World Heritage Site.