Cultural organizer, public historian, and social change 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 as a co-founder of William & Mary’s Lemon Project; as a state program director under the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH); and with the General Assembly to establish Virginia’s Black, Indigenous, & People of Color Historic Preservation Fund. More recently, I collaborated regionally with local organizers, activists, and other civic leaders to create one of Virginia’s first major philanthropic programs devoted to social change movement building.

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