When They DON’T See Us: A Global Summit on the Embodiment of Racism, Violence and Trauma

Wanda M. Akin

Wanda M. Akin was formerly the Managing Attorney for Chubb & Son, Inc.’s, New Jersey House Counsel firm, Scanlon & Akin, and a Senior Trial Attorney and Of Counsel to Podvey, Sachs, Meanor, Catenacci, Hildner & Cocoziello (Podvey Meanor). She now maintains her private practice in Newark, NJ and is an Adjunct Professor at Seton Hall University School of Law and at Seton Hall University’s School of Diplomacy & International Relations. Notably, Akin taught in the Seton Hall Law/American University at Cairo, Egypt. Her 36 years of experience as a trial lawyer span a wide variety of controversies including criminal defense (in US and International Courts), complex product liability, property claims, catastrophic personal injury, employment/labor, trademark and copyright, and other complex litigation. She is a member of the List of Counsel, qualified to represent accused and victims before the International Criminal Court (ICC) and represents victims of the Darfur Crisis at the ICC in the Darfur Situation as well as in the case against Sudanese President Omar Al Bashir. Akin was a member for 15 years of the New Jersey Supreme Court’s Committee on the Rules of Evidence, was a Trustee of the Trial Attorneys of New Jersey, a Master in the Seton Hall Law School Alumni Association Inn of Court and a Presidential Appointee to the New Jersey State Bar Association’s Committee on Judicial Administration. She was awarded the 2009 NAACP Newark Unit Freedom Fund Award for her work as co-founder of the nonprofit for the promotion of international justice & human rights, the International Justice Project. Ms. Akin is a periodic commentator on Court TV, MSNBC, Inside The Law (PBS); NJN (New Jersey Network);UPN 9 News and CN8 It’s Your Call. She has appeared on the TODAY SHOW, Good Morning America, Larry King Live, Entertainment Tonight and New York’s News Channel 4.

Ernesto "Eroc" Arroyo-Montano 

Ernesto "Eroc" Arroyo-Montano is a proud father of three wonderful children, an emcee, circle-keeper, artist, cultural organizer, educator, curandero-in-training and aspiring elder. He is a queer Boricua raised in Boston, MA, and a founding member of the radical, award-winning Hip Hop group, Foundation Movement, with whom he has been blessed to facilitate workshops and perform around the globe. This has included Tanzania (where they performed at Black August), Kenya, Cuba (where they were honored to meet Assata Shakur), Palestine (where they performed at refugee camps), South Africa, and Japan (where they participated in a 72 day peace walk from Hiroshima to Tokyo). All of these experiences have and continue to deeply transform him.  

Healing and Transformative Justice, Arts & Activism, and Popular Education remain his passions, purpose and priority in his community liberation movement work, which he is able to develop, practice and facilitate in my current role as Director of Cultural Organizing at the grassroots economic justice organization, 'United for a Fair Economy'.

Sa'ed Atshan

Dr. Sa'ed Atshan is Assistant Professor of Peace and Conflict Studies at Swarthmore College. He previously served as a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Watson Institute for International Studies at Brown University. He earned a Joint PhD in Anthropology and Middle Eastern Studies and an MA in Social Anthropology from Harvard University, and a Master in Public Policy (MPP) from the Harvard Kennedy School. He received his BA from Swarthmore in 2006. His research interests are at the intersection of peace and conflict studies, the anthropology of policy, critical development studies, and gender and sexuality studies. He has two forthcoming books with Stanford University Press: Queer Palestine and the Empire of Critique and Paradoxes of Humanitarianism: The Social Life of Aid in the Palestinian Territories (Anthropology of Policy Series). He also has co-authored, with Katharina Galor, The Moral Triangle: Germans, Israelis, and Palestinians, to be published with Duke University Press in 2020. Atshan has been awarded multiple fellowships from a wide range of organizations. He has worked for the American Civil Liberties Union, the UN High Commission on Refugees, Human Rights Watch, the Palestinian Negotiations Affairs Department, and the Government of Dubai. He is also a Palestinian, Quaker, and LGBTQ human rights activist.

Raymond M. Brown

Raymond M. Brown is a partner at Scarinci Hollenbeck in Lyndhurst, NJ, concentrating his legal practice in white collar criminal defense, international human rights issues, internal investigations and complex commercial litigation. He has practiced international law criminal law (ICL) while teaching, writing, lecturing, and serving as an international legal journalist. Mr. Brown is a member of List Counsel at the International Criminal Court (ICC) and is Legal Representative for Victims in the case of OTP v Bashir and in the Darfur Situation. Mr. Brown served as Defense Counsel at the Special Court for Sierra Leone and has dealt with complex extradition issues in U.S. courts. Additionally, he has conducted investigations throughout the U.S. as well as in Kenya, elsewhere in East Africa, Liberia, El Salvador, the Cayman Islands, Switzerland, the Bahamas, Colombia, and Sierra Leone. Mr. Brown has taught ICL in the Seton Hall/American University Program at Cairo, Egypt, at Seton Hall University School of Law and Seton Hall’s Diplomacy School. He has frequently lectured to criminal and civil lawyers, law enforcement personnel and judges, students, civil society elements and others on inter alia trial practice, human rights and international law. In July 2005, Mr. Brown spoke on the “American Perspective on Nuremberg” in Courtroom 600 of the Justice Palace in Nuremberg, Germany on the 60th Anniversary of the proceedings before the International Military Tribunal. He is a member of the New Jersey and New York Bars and has qualified as List Counsel before the International Criminal Court in The Hague, where he has been a Legal Representative for Victims in the Darfur Situation. 

Monica Cannon-Grant

Monica Cannon-Grant is a resident of Boston Massachusetts. She has resided in the Roxbury area for 16 years. More recently a Candidate for State Representative for the 7th Suffolk District. She is a Community Liaison in her neighborhood of Warren Gardens. She has hosted an Annual Back to School Block Party for Peace for the past 9 years. She was a member of the Peace Collaborative where she was the Director of Promotions and has helped host their 100 Slices bake sale and Annual Got Peace Basketball Tournament. She is the Executive Director of The Tito Jackson Community Fund where she has organized his Annual turkey where they gave away 4,000 turkeys last year. She has also organized his Annual Turkey Fry where they have served at least 800 people. Monica sits on the Advisory Board for an organization named Community Call. She was Co-Chair of The Parent Council at The Lilla G. Frederick Pilot School and She has Coordinated New Mission High School’s First Football Banquet. Monica Former member of the Citywide parent council and Former Chair of the Young Adult Committee for the NAACP and current member. Monica believes in the Motto “Our Community Our Responsibility” which is why she is the Founder of the Violence In Boston Inc movement highlighting disparities around violence in communities of color. She also was the Lead organizer in the Fight Supremacy March to counter-protest the “Boston Free Speech Rally”.

Clementina Chéry

Chaplain Clementina Chéry is the founder, President, and CEO of the Louis D. Brown Peace Institute in Boston, Massachusetts. The Peace Institute is a center of healing, teaching, and learning for families and communities impacted by murder, grief, trauma, and loss. Chaplain Chéry and her family founded the Peace Institute in 1994 after her fifteen-year old son Louis D. Brown was murdered in the crossfire of a shootout. With over two decades of experience as a survivor serving families impacted by murder, Chaplain Chéry has developed the best practices in the field of homicide response. Her professional goal is to transform society’s response to homicide so that all families are treated with dignity and compassion, regardless of the circumstances. Her spiritual goal is to become a minister of God’s Peace that is rotted in love, unity faith, hope, courage, justice and in forgiveness. The Peace of God that surpasses human understanding.

Chaplain Chery was named a 2017 Barr Foundation Fellow, one of twelve non-profit leaders selected to participate in the two year fellowship. The Barr Fellowship, designed to advance three important goals -  recognize and support leadership, strengthen organizational capacity, and build civic leadership - comes at a critical time for Ms. Chery and for the Peace Institute.  Participation as a Barr Fellow provided Chaplain Chery with time for personal reflection, renewal and professional development.

The Social Innovation Forum in recognition of the Institute’s groundbreaking solutions to social problems selected Chaplain Chéry and the Peace Institute as 2016 Social Innovators.  Chaplain Chéry is using her platform as a Social Innovator to launch the Peace Institute’s Training, Technical Assistance and Consulting Services (TTAC). TTAC provides tools, training, evaluation, and consulting services to stakeholders across the country in the survivor-centered, trauma-informed, offender sensitive methodology that Chaplain Chéry developed.

Chaplain Chéry has developed groundbreaking publications for families of murder victims and the providers who serve them, including “Always in My Heart: A Workbook for Grieving Children” (2011) and the Survivors Burial and Resource Guide (2013). The Survivors Burial and Resource Guide is the only tool available that offers step-by-step guidance to families of murder victims so that they can lay their loved one to rest with respect and dignity while managing the crisis and chaos after a homicide happens.  Chaplain Chéry is also coauthor of an article entitled “Homicide Survivors: Research and Practice Implications” published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine in 2005.

Chaplain Chéry has extensive experience training public health professionals and law enforcement officials to better serve families impacted by murder and interrupt cycles of retaliatory violence. She has trained doctors, social workers, psychologists, street workers, religious leaders, homicide detectives, and other providers at city and state agencies, hospitals, and community-based organizations. Chaplain Chéry has presented at the National Organization for Victims Assistance conference. Chaplain Chéry worked closely with the Boston Police Department to establish the Family Resource Officer position on the force to better serve families of homicide victims. The Louis D. Brown Peace Institute has received the Senator Charles E. Shannon Community Safety Initiative grant awarded annually by the Boston Police Department every year since 2009. Through this partnership, Chaplain Chéry has provided training and technical assistance to the Boston Police Department and fellow Shannon grantees.

Chaplain Chéry also founded the Serving Survivors of Homicide Victims Providers Network to share the Peace Institute’s expertise with fellow providers, foster collaboration between providers across Massachusetts, and improve service coordination and delivery to families impacted by murder.

Chaplain Chéry has received countless awards in recognition of her courageous leadership and tireless peacemaking work. Most recently, Chéry was named one of Boston’s 100 most influential leaders of color in 2016 by Collette Phillips Communications, Inc.  She was also given the 2016 Impact Award by Phillips Brooks House Association at Harvard University. In 2014, Salem State University Awarded Chaplain Chéry the Champion of Peace Award.  She was named Citizen of the Year by the National Association of Social Workers in 2011. Chaplain Chéry holds honorary Doctorate Degrees from Regis College in Weston and Mount Ida College in Newton and in 2017 she received an honorary Dr. Of Ministry from College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, MA. She was ordained as a senior chaplain with the International Fellowship of Chaplain, Inc. in February of 2012.  He greatest accomplishments I the mother of Louis, Alexandra and Allen and the grandmother of her 6 year young grandson Alexander.

Llewellyn J. Cornelius

Llewellyn J. Cornelius is the Donald Lee Hollowell Distinguished Professor of Social Justice and Civil Rights studies and the University of Georgia. He has more than 22 years of experience in community-based participatory research and more than 37 years of experience in psychosocial research, as well as survey and evaluation research. He has worked in tandem with researchers, administrators and consumers in the design, implementation and evaluation of interventions that focused on improving the health and well-being of under-resourced communities.

He has trained more than 150 professionals in designing and conducting outcomes research, coached 36 mid-career social workers in leadership development, mentored 40 doctoral students, trained 10 post MD/PhD early career minority researchers as part of the Association of American Medical Colleges Minority Health Services Research Program and taught more than 2,200 MSW students in the second largest MSW program in the United States.

In addition to teaching survey research, he has been involved in the design and implementation of a multitude of studies, including the fielding of a statewide survey which examined the cultural competency of mental health providers; the evaluation of global community based HIV prevention and treatment efforts and the development and implementation of surveys which assessed the use of technology in social work. Cornelius’ prevention research focuses on developing community-responsive, culturally appropriate educational, attitudinal and behavioral change interventions as well as examining the barriers to the successful adoption of interventions by individuals, practitioners and communities.

Cornelius has been recognized as the fifth most-cited African American scholar in social work in a study published in the journal Research on Social Work Practice. In May of 2014 Oxford University Press published A Social Justice Approach for Survey Design and Analysis, which he co-authored with Donna Harrington. His book, Designing and Conducting Health Surveys: A Comprehensive Guide, has been cited more than 1,700 times since it was published in 2006. He has recently (2019) co-authored a bio of a Latina health care professional leader (Dr. Debbie Salas Lopez) that is in press entitled The Girl From the Bronx that defied the odds: A true story of struggle, resiliency and courage.

Nadine M Finigan-Carr

Nadine M Finigan-Carr, Ph.D., is a prevention research scientist focused on the application of behavioral and social science perspectives to research on contemporary health problems, especially those that disproportionately affect people of color. She is a nationally recognized expert on domestic minor human trafficking and sexual exploitation. She is Assistant Director of the Ruth Young Center for Families and Children at the University of Maryland: School of Social Work where she leads the Prevention of Adolescent Risks Initiative. She is PI of projects at both state and federal levels designed to intervene with system involved youth. Dr Finigan-Carr is the author of Linking Health and Education for African American Students’ Success (Routledge Press).

Dr. Tameka L. Gillum

Dr. Tameka L. Gillum is an Associate Professor in the Psychology Department at Russell Sage College. Dr. Gillum has over 20 years of research experience in exploring and addressing intimate partner violence/dating violence (IPV/DV) within racial/ethnic minority and sexual minority populations, development of culturally specific prevention and intervention efforts, health clinic based IPV interventions and the mental health effects of IPV/DV victimization. Among other accomplishments, this work earned her the Outstanding Research Award from the national Institute on Domestic Violence in the African American Community (IDVAAC), for which she subsequently served on the steering committee for 5 years. Dr. Gillum is a community psychologist who conducts community based research. Her most recent research involves investigating IPV in Kenya, East Africa and among African immigrants in the U.S.

Sadada Jackson

Sadada Jackson, M.T.S., M.Ed., RYT, is a student of practice who lives in her body and vacations in her mind. She holds a B.A. in Theatre with a minor in English, and an M. Ed. in Secondary Education both are from UMass Boston, and an M.T.S in Indigenous Traditions from Harvard University.  Presently, she works as a freelance educator. She works with leaders and educators in the fields and practices of education, training, and healing. A facilitator, coach, and speaker she works with leaders, educators, and healers to support them in embodying and curating ethical practices, structures, and relationships in their work. Her goal in doing this work is to end relational and structural violence done on marginalized bodies within educational and healing arts/practices. She is Natick Nipmuc.

Simone John

Simone John is a poet, educator, and facilitator based in Boston, MA. Her debut collection, TESTIFY, was published by Octopus Books in 2017. She received an MFA in Creative Writing from Goddard College with an emphasis on documentary poetics. Simone performs and produces exhibits through UnBound Bodies, a multidisciplinary QTBIPOC arts collective. She is Associate Director of Organizational Equity Practice at Trinity Boston Connects and Chief Creative Officer of Hive Soul Yoga, a community wellness business. Find her online at simonejohn.com and on twitter @simoneivory.

Demetrius Keller

Demetrius Keller is a current graduate student in the School of Social Work at the University of Georgia. Demetrius holds a bachelor’s in social work from Bowie State University. Demetrius is a current graduate assistant for the Center of Social Justice, Civil and Human Rights at the University of Georgia School of Social Work. Demetrius research and interest are geared towards the liberation of African American children and anyone that is suffering from systematic oppression, such as the school to prison pipeline and global issues. During, his undergraduate career, Demetrius, worked with a plethora of organizations catered towards the cultivation of youth development as well as a mentor for several scholars on campus. He also, worked alongside Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity Incorporated to engaged in presentations at Cheltenham Youth Detention Center. Lastly, he was program director for a renowned organization, The Maryland Center, a nonprofit delivering capstone programs in STEM for High School age children. Demetrius has one mission to change the world.

Susan Marine

Susan Marine, Ph.D.(she/her) is Associate Professor and Program Director in the Higher Education Master’s Program at Merrimack College. She was the founding director of the Harvard University Office of Sexual Assault Prevention and Response and served in various advocacy roles on four different college campuses during her career in student affairs. Susan's research and advocacy focuses on using queer/critical ontologies methods to build gender expansive campuses, including ending sexual violence in LGBTQ student communities and fostering the full participation and flourishing of trans students. She serves as a consultant to community organizations working to end violence, serves on the Take Back the Night Foundation Board of Directors, and is the author of Stonewall’s Legacy: Bisexual, gay, lesbian and transgender students in higher education (Jossey-Bass) and the forthcoming book, Collaborating for change: Transforming cultures to end gender-based violence in higher education (Oxford UP).

Notisha Massaquoi

Notisha Massaquoi is originally from Sierra Leone and is a highly respected expert in designing programs and increasing access to primary healthcare for Black women. She has worked extensively in the area of violence against women serving on the Ontario Premiers’ Expert Roundtable  on Gender Based Violence.  During her lengthy career she has also facilitated the development of several health organizations for Black communities in Canada including Africans in Partnership Against AIDS and the African Resource Centre.  She has spent the past 2 decades as an executive leader in the community health sector leading the only community health centre in Canada which specifically provides primary healthcare for racialized women. Her research and numerous publications have focused on the use of health equity data to improve health outcomes for Black women as well as the impact of racism on the health and wellbeing of Black communities.  She is the co-editor of the anthology, Theorizing Empowerment: Canadian Perspectives on Black Feminist Thought and currently is a lecturer at the Ryerson University Faculty of Social Work. Notisha has recently been the named the recipient of the 2019 Black Health Alliance Legacy Award.

C. Shawn McGuffey

C. Shawn McGuffey, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of Sociology and Director of African & African Diaspora Studies at Boston College.  A native of Lexington, Kentucky, his professional work primarily highlights how race, gender, sexuality and social class both constrain and create the choices survivors pursue in the aftermath of trauma.  Two of his current projects focus on sexual trauma.  One examines how gender, sexuality, and race shape parental responses to child sexual abuse; and the other investigates the social psychology of sexual assault survivors in the U.S., Ghana, South Africa, and Rwanda.  Dr. McGuffey is the recipient of three American Sociological Association awards:  the 2006 Sally Hacker Award for research excellence, a 2009 “Best Research Article Award,” and a 2016 “Distinguished Article Award.”  In 2016 he also received the Kimberlé Crenshaw Award from the Society for the Study of Social Problems. 

Joseph B. Richardson, Jr.

Dr. Joseph B. Richardson, Jr., is the Joel and Kim Feller Professor in the Departments of African-American Studies and Anthropology (Medical) at the University of Maryland at College Park. Dr. Richardson holds a Secondary Appointment in the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, Division of Preventive Medicine, at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. Dr. Richardson’s research focuses on gun violence, conflict, violent injury and trauma among Black males. Dr. Richardson is the Founder and former Co-Director of the Capital Region Violence Intervention Program (CAP-VIP), a hospital-based violence intervention program, at the University of Maryland Prince George’s Hospital Center. He is currently the Executive Director of the Translational Research and Applied Violence Intervention Lab (TRAVAIL) an interdisciplinary violence and conflict research lab at the University of Maryland College Park, College of Behavioral and Social Sciences. His selected publications and features have appeared in the Journal of Surgical Research, VICE News and the Huffington Post. Dr. Richardson is currently producing a digital storytelling project titled Life After the Gunshot funded by the Center for Victim Research, Researcher 2 Practitioner Fellowship, to explore the lives of male survivors of nonfatal firearm violence with histories of criminal justice involvement.

Jocelyn R. Smith Lee

Dr. Jocelyn R. Smith Lee is an Assistant Professor of Human Development and Family Studies at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro. Dr. Smith Lee’s community engaged program of research investigates trauma, violence, loss, and healing among Black boys, men, and their families. Rooted in Baltimore, MD and growing in Greensboro, NC, this research examines racial disparities in violent injury and works to understand how losing loved ones to homicide shapes the health, well-being, development, and family relationships of Black males and their social networks. At UNCG, she is the founder and director of the Centering Black Voices research lab whose vision is to affirm the humanity of Black boys, men, and families by creating supportive spaces were Black communities can leverage research to transform pain into collective growth, healing, justice, and advancement. Dr. Smith Lee completed her undergraduate studies at Hampton University, her graduate work in Family Science at the University of Maryland, College Park, and a Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of Michigan School of Public Health. Dr. Smith Lee’s interdisciplinary research has been published in top-tier journals and presented at national conferences and invited talks. A homicide survivor herself, Jocelyn is deeply committed to this healing work.

Cole Rodriguez

Cole Rodriguez is an internationally recognized spoken word artist, originating from Boston, MA.  As a six-year participant in the National Poetry Slam, Cole has competed against the top-ranked poets in the United States.  As a mother, teacher, artist and friend, Cole has used her poetic work to create community, inspire activism and speak truth to power.

Passionate about youth development, Cole works with universities, high schools and in therapeutic settings to facilitate spaces wherein poetry can be de-constructed, celebrated and created.  Bridging the gap between theory and practice, she has worked with institutions including Harvard University, Berklee College of Music, Boston College, Salem State University and Bermuda College, as well as a host of alternative and public schools, to incorporate activism and poetic voice into the classroom.

As a performance poet, she has captured audience's attention as an acclaimed slam winner at Cambridge’s Lizard Lounge, Roxbury’s House Slam and Manhattan’s Nuyorican Café.  This lover of rhyme continues to perform throughout the US and abroad.

Cole Rodriguez is an avid music appreciator, an occasional Celtics fan and a beast in the kitchen.

Avital Wulz

Avital Wulz is a current graduate student in Public Health and Social Work at the University of Georgia. Avital holds a BS in Psychology from the University of Georgia and MS in Positive Psychology from Life University. Avital is the current Associate Producer for the Voices for Social Justice podcast and the graduate assistant for the Center for Social Justice, Civil and Human Right at the University of Georgia’s School of Social Work. Her research and practice interests focuses on developing interdisciplinary, human-rights, and trauma-informed approaches to addressing systemic issues, including mass incarceration. Before graduate school, Avital was the Research and Program Coordinator at the Center for Compassion, Integrity, and Secular Ethics at Life University. In this role, she assisted on the development team for the Associates of Arts degree program at Arrendale State Prison for Women in Georgia, called The Chillon Project. Additionally, Avital wrote an extensive literature review on higher education in prison and currently is a co-investigator for the research study evaluating the social, emotional, and physical effects of higher education in a carceral setting.