She is a Professor of United States and Atlantic Studies and Personal Chair in English Literature, University of Edinburgh, Scotland. Author of over 20 monographs, essay collections, special issues, and scholarly editions and over 35 essays and book chapters and curator of over 6 US and UK travelling exhibitions. Her single-authored books include: African American Visual Arts, Characters of Blood, Suffering and Sunset, Stick to the Skin, If I Survive, Living Parchments, Battleground, The Anna Murray and Frederick Douglass Family Papers and Douglass Family Lives. Winner of a British Association for American Studies Book Prize and co-winner of a European Association for American Studies Book Prize and International African American History and Genealogical Society Maryland Book Award, she has delivered over 250 guest lectures and plenaries and held visiting appointments and fellowships at Memphis, Harvard, Yale, Oxford, King’s College London, University of California, Santa Barbara, the National Center for the Humanities in Durham, North Carolina, and the Obama Institute in Mainz, Germany. Previously Co-Editor-in-Chief for the Journal of American Studies published by Cambridge University Press, Bernier is the recipient of a UK Philip Leverhulme Prize and Major Research Leverhulme Fellowship, AHRC Research and Leadership Fellowships, and Terra Foundation for American Art Program and Publication Grants. In 2018, she was awarded a Citation by Lt. Governor Boyd Rutherford of Maryland “as an internationally respected scholar, author and world renowned historian of African American Studies.” She is currently working on a three year international interdisciplinary research project funded by the UK Leverhulme Trust titled, Sacrifice is Survival: Black Families Fighting for Freedom in the USA and Canada (1732-1936).

He is the Head of the Study of Religions, Senior Lecturer in Contemporary Islam and Chair of the Race Equality Forum, University College Cork, Ireland.
He joined University College Cork in 2015 as Senior Lecturer in Contemporary Islam and is an affiliated member of staff of the University of Glasgow's Department of Theology and Religious Studies.

He has studied Arabic and Islam in France, Jordan, and Syria and has particular interest in Urdu and Punjabi poetry, or ghazals. His first book, The Crisis of Islamic Masculinities, was published with Bloomsbury Academic in January 2014. His second book, Judaism, Christianity and Islam: An Introduction to Monotheism, also published with Bloomsbury Academic in October 2020. Aman's books have been reviewed in The Times Higher Education, New Books in Islamic Studies USA and BBC Radio Scotland's 'Sunday Morning with...'. Amanullah is currently working on book projects relating to themes on contemporary and historical Islam and Muslims.

Amanullah is a Director at NASC Ireland (The Migrant and Refugee Rights Centre) and has twice been invited to lead Time for Reflection at the Scottish Parliament and has been a regular contributor to BBC Radio Scotland's 'Thought for the Day' and 'Sunday Morning' for over 15 years.

Joanna Dukkipati (she/her) gathers stories to produce podcasts, magazines and create multilingual prose/poetry gatherings so as to change the narrative and build a kind world. Joanna is is the founding editor of Good Day Cork, a digital magazine that amplifies unrepresented voices and offers an uplifting media diet.

She is the founder of #DouglassWeek and co-founder of the Globe Lane Initiative.

She is also a cultural manager, Goethe-Institut in Ireland and international educator and activist.

Before that, she taught at University College Cork for several years. In the last 15 years, she has dedicated her research and teaching to engaging students with the cinematic representation of slavery, racism and stereotyping, and making North American slavery on page and on screen accessible, visible and understandable for students. Her work also explores the foundations of modern-day, systemic racism, following the political, cultural and social developments and civil rights movements and she has been involved in a variety of diversity and inclusion efforts in Ireland and abroad, such as the Free The Slaves Initiative or Students Ending Slavery.
Her publications include Southern History on Screen: Race and Rights, 1976-2016 ; and more research appears on her website: www.cinematicslavenarratives.com.

She is a Senior Advisor at the Frederick Douglass Family Initiatives and the Founder of the Frederick Douglass Ireland Project. She is the co-founder of #DouglassWeek.

An attorney based in Washington, DC, she has extensive experience working with the U.S. government and nonprofit groups, labor unions, and policy organizations and building diverse coalitions around legislative and policy issues. She began her career on the staff of the late Senator Edward M. Kennedy and has worked on many national political campaigns. Leary is patron of the Washington Ireland Program, a graduate of Boston College and the Catholic University School of Law.

Paula Martinez is a Brazillian Ecuadorian Masters student at UCD on Racial issues, migration issues and decolonisation. Martinez is part of two charities against direct provision and to help people in DP to carry a better life. Martinez is a racial justice advocate writing a thesis on Irishness and blackness.

She is a Programme Coordinator at Cork Migrant Centre, Nano Nagle Place, Cork, Ireland. She is a psychologist and a three-time graduate of University College Cork (BA, Applied Psychology: MA, Forensic Psychology; PhD specialising in the Psychosocial Wellbeing of Sub-Saharan African Migrant Children).

As a direct result of her PhD, she developed a culturally sensitive training program for front line service providers which she has delivered in UCC (Psychology and BSW courses), UCD (Clinical Psychology program), the Good Shepherd Cork among others. Also, as a direct result of her PhD Naomi was instrumental in setting up the Cork Migrant Centre Psychosocial Wellbeing and Integration Hub at the Nano Nagle Place, focused on culturally sensitive services and transformative social justice work. She is a guest lecturer at the School of Psychology Cork. Naomi was the recipient of UCC 2020 Athena SWAN Equality Award.

Sarah McCreedy, Singer/Songwriter from Holywood, Co. Down, understands music as a way to at least attempt to answer that question.
From meaningful relationships to existential crises, McCreedy's music chronicles human experience in all its complexity.

Mirroring the multitudes of life itself, McCreedy's approach to genre is far from monolithic: you can expect elements of acoustic, folk, indie pop, and more, often wrapped up in the sadgirl influences of artists such as Phoebe Bridgers and Soccer Mommy.
McCreedy will launch her debut album in The Courthouse Bangor with full band on 3lst May.

The album, titled Why am I still here?, is the chronicling of her twenties including fan favourite garden ghosts, which was added to Spotify playlists including "New Music Friday UK" and
"Lost in the Woods."

He is the Co-Founder & President, Rochester, NY-based Frederick Douglass Family Initiatives. Morris is the great-great-great-grandson of Frederick Douglass and the great-great-grandson of Booker T. Washington. He continues his family’s legacy of anti-slavery and educational work as co-founder and president of the Rochester, NY-based nonprofit Frederick Douglass Family Initiatives (FDFI).

Associate Professor and Chair, Department of Geography, Bucknell University. Mulligan’s research and teaching focus on the role that places play in both producing but also countering norms of nationalism, race, gender and sexuality. His publications cover a broad array of topics, for example researching Irish abolitionism and Frederick Douglass’s lecture tour, uncovering the role of the Ladies’ Land League in the Irish Land War, considering sexuality in American St. Patrick’s Day Parades, and exploring citizenship and multiculturalism in postcolonial modern Ireland.

Dr. Hannah-Rose Murray is a historian based at Queen Mary, University of London. Her research focuses on Black activism in the transatlantic. Her first book, Advocates of Freedom: African American Transatlantic Abolitionism in the British Isles was published in 2020 by Cambridge University Press, and her accompanying website, www.frederickdouglassinbritain.com attempts to map as many Black activist speaking locations as possible across Britain and Ireland. She has organized numerous community events including talks, school workshops, heritage plaques, performances, podcasts, plays, exhibitions and walking tours on both sides of the Atlantic.

She is a youth project worker, and a mentor at Cork Migrant Centre (CMC), has been involved in shaping the project. Other supporters include beloved, vivacious local radio DJ, Stevie Grainger (Stevie G); artists and pupils at Migrant Centre; and the Cork cultural and heritage centre, Nano Nagle Place.

Nikhil Saboo (he/him) is an Indian-Nepalese songwriter, filmmaker, actor., and Chita Rivera Award nominated dancer. After graduating from NYU with a degree in Vocal Performance and Business of Entertainment, Media, and Technology, he was cast in the original Broadway production of Mean Girls: The Musical. After a thrilling two years, he joined the Angelica Tour of Hamilton until the world stood still in 2020. Over the pandemic, he co-founded a ice-dying clothing company alongside his sister, Nisha, where all proceeds went to COVID and BLM efforts. He was most recently seen as Connor Murphy in the national tour of Dear Evan Hansen, being the first POC and South Asian to play the Tony-Nominated role. There he started a ticket initiative that fully sponsored two tickets each week to BIPOC that desired to see the show, but might not have access to the resources needed to attend. He is also the founder of Nikshana Films that has produced a silent short, “Scarf” shot in Dublin, Ireland and “InBetween”, currently in post-production alongside KernoForto Productions. Above all, he strives to open spaces and uplift POCs, especially other aspiring South Asian artists.

Paul Oakley Stovall is a critically-acclaimed writer and actor. His newest play, WRITTEN BY PHILLIS, about the life of poet Phillis Wheatley, received critical acclaim at Quintessence Theatre in Philadelphia and is Barrymore recommended. Paul portrayed George Washington in the national tour of "Hamilton: An American Musical" for four years.

While performing on tour, his KernoForto Productions (KFP) completed four projects. The first, a short film entitled BUFFALO, was selected to over ten festivals including the prestigious aGLIFF and competed for the IRIS PRIZE in Cardiff. The second, a web series pilot called COLUMBUS, won best web series at the Big Apple Film Festival in NYC, and scored five awards at the LA Independent Shorts, including Best Sci-Fi, Best Thriller and Best Original Story. It Columbus received four Septimius award nominations in Amsterdam. Wolfe In Waiting, the third project has just been nominated for the Septimius awards and the fourth, CHARLOTTE is in post production. Other projects in the hopper include FATHERS AND SONS, a dramedy about interracial intersectional LGBTQ parenting in a post Obama era; ADVANCE, a political thriller; THREE STORIES HIGH, where Twilight Zone and Black Mirror meet Dear White People; THE TRANSMANAUT CHRONICLES, four black teenage best friends on an epic road trip set in 1970s California; and two comedies, GOOD TIMES TALENT and INCOGNEGRO, about a black talent agency, and a black detective agency. Mr. Stovall was also a staff writer for season 4 on the STARZ network hit comedy Survivor’s Remorse (Mike O’Malley - showrunner, Ali Leroi - EP) starring NAACP award recipient Tichina Arnold. As a playwright he is a Steinberg, Jeff, and GLAAD award nominee for his play Immediate Family, which has been directed by Phylicia Rashad at Goodman and Mark Taper Forum. His musical CLEAR was chosen for the Eugene O’Neill National Playwrights/ Music Theatre Conference.

As an actor, he has appeared off-Broadway at Second Stage in Tony winner Mary Zimmerman’s Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci and at Lincoln Center in the world premiere of Dessa Rose directed by Graciela Daniele. Other NYC work includes .22 Caliber Mouth at Ohio Theatre directed by Tony winner Diane Paulus, and assistant director to Phylicia Rashad for the Signature Theatre production of Pulitzer Prize winner Stephen Adly Guirgis’ Our Lady of 121st Street. Regionally, Mr. Stovall has appeared in Chicago at Steppenwolf in the world premiere of The Qualms by Tony winner Bruce Norris and directed by Tony winner Pam McKinnon. And his film work includes John Cameron Mitchell’s SHORTBUS and Robert Altman’s THE COMPANY.

He was creative director and head writer for the 35th Annual National Equal Justice Awards Dinner for the Legal Defense Fund, and for the 2019 Juneteenth Unityfest featuring Amanda Seales and JB Smoove among others.

Outside of the arts, Paul served as an advance associate for Senator then President Obama, and as a media logistics coordinator for First Lady Obama, representing the administration domestically and around the world in South Africa, Ghana, Egypt, Sweden, UK, Ukraine, Kosovo, Canada, South Korea, Chile, Denmark, and Turkey among others.

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Dr Clare Gallagher is lecturer for MFA Photography and BA (Hons) Photography with Video. She studied in London, Canterbury, Toulouse and Belfast, earning an MFA with distinction, and is a Fellow of the HEA. She is external examiner at the University of Sunderland and at IADT, Dún Laoghaire, and is on the board of the Belfast Photo Festival. She has written for Visual Artists Ireland, the British Journal of Photography and contributed a chapter for Stephen Bull's book A Companion to Photography. Clare's practice examines ways of making visible the unseen work of home. She recently published a photobook The Second Shift and has exhibited her work internationally.

Emma Campbell is a multi-disciplinary Research Associate on the Shared Island Reproductive Citizenship project and a part-time lecturer in the Photography department, both at Ulster University. Her PhD was on utilising socially engaged practice as a tool for abortion rights along with Alliance for Choice where she is co-convenor. Emma is also a member of the Turner Prize winning Array Collective, whose practice is embedded in queer & feminist art and activism. She makes work that is image-based (photography and collage), participatory, performance-enhanced and active in affecting change.

Bio to be added soon

Dr Alessia Cargnelli (she/her, b. 1990 in Trieste, Italy) is a visual artist and researcher based in Belfast.
Alessia is a former co-director of the artist-led initiative Catalyst Arts Gallery (2016-2018). She was 2020-21 Research Associate at the Centre for Contemporary Art in Derry. She completed a BFA with Hons in Visual and Performing Arts at IUAV University and a MA in Contemporary Art History at Ca’Foscari University in Venice, Italy. She obtained an Associate Fellowship Diploma with AFHEA at Ulster University in 2021 and she is currently completing her doctoral research at the Belfast School of Art on feminist-led women-artists’ advocacy groups connected with the island of Ireland in the late 80s and early 90s. In 2023, Alessia was appointed post-doctoral researcher-in-residency at the National Irish Visual Arts Library, based in NCAD, Dublin; with a pilot project focused on expanding underrepresented categories in the library’s collections – such as artists and designers which are coming from diverse ethnic/cultural/gender backgrounds and nationalities.
With a background in artist moving image practice, subsequently informed by artist-led initiatives and collaborative productions, Alessia’s interests expand towards alternative forms of education, feminist-informed methodologies, collective self-organisations, activism, and artist moving image production and programming. Along with artist Emily McFarland, she is co-founder of Soft Fiction Projects (2018-ongoing), an artist-run initiative dedicated to producing digital and printed matter on artist moving image culture; focused on the exploring omitted voices, oppositional histories, geopolitical narratives underpinned by intersectional feminist perspectives which challenge and reframe dominant hegemonic power structures. Alessia is also a member of Array Collective, a Belfast-based group who, since 2016, creates collaborative actions in response to the socio-political issues affecting the north of Ireland. Array Collective was the winner of the 2021 Turner Prize, with the immersive installation The Druthaib’s Ball, which is now part of the Ulster Museum permanent collection. Array is featured in current exhibition at IMMA Self-Determination: A Global Perspective, with a newly commissioned body of works.

Sarah Tehan is a visual artist and PhD researcher at Ulster University. Her work explores visual culture and representation in photography. Her current research examines how photographic practice has been shaped through the ‘Colonial lens’ working with archival Images and films of Colonial Soldiers in the Second World War. Sarah holds an MA in Photographic Studies from the University of Westminster, a BA (Hons) in Photography from the University for the Creative Arts and a BSc (Hons) in Forensic Science from the University of Kent. Her work has been published and exhibited in the UK and internationally.

Aidan is a Dublin-born photographer/filmmaker. In recent years, he has worked predominantly on documentary projects and for international NGOs. Recent work has seen him cover the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico, trade partnerships between the UK and the "global south", the situation facing female survivors of war and genocide in Rwanda and Iraq, life within Kibera (Africa's Largest "slum") and several animal welfare projects. He works with The United Nations and a wide-ranging selection of NGOs, including Mothers 2 Mothers, Wild at Heart Foundation, Women for Women International, Trócaire & The Free Yezedi Foundation, among many more. Aidan is working towards a PhD focusing on engagement between genocide survivors and the people who document their stories. Aidan passionately documents and advocates for social justice and equality for all through his work.

Dr Jolene Mairs Dyer is a Lecturer in Media Production at Ulster University. She is also the Director of Belfast Feminist Film School. As a practice-based researcher, Jolene has produced documentaries, multi-screen gallery installations, photographic projects and more recently 360° short films. As well as writing about documentary theory and practice, her notion of the Matrixial Screen Encounter theorises the intersubjective gaze in documentary filmmaking and also provides a novel model of collective filmic authorship.

Bio to be added soon

Sarah Kay is a human rights lawyer specialized in counter-terrorism and warfare. She grew up in the Springfield Road area in West Belfast, and spent her early adulthood working in New York City. She moved back to Belfast in September 2020. She is a member of the Association of Mixed Race Irish.

Brendan Harkin is a Belfast-based photographer who primarily covers protests and activism in Northern Ireland.

Bio to be added soon

Dr Maurice J Casey is the DFA Historian in Residence at EPIC The Irish Emigration Museum. In this role he carries out original research into the history of the Irish abroad and highlights the work of other scholars exploring the Irish diaspora experience. He completed his doctoral studies at the University of Oxford, where his research focused on the international networks of Irish radical women during the interwar period. His research interests include Irish involvement in radical political movements at home and abroad across the 19th and 20th centuries and the history of race, racism and the Irish diaspora. His current book project explores the lives of Irish, British, German, Russian and American revolutionaries who lived together in a single Moscow hotel and their place within the world revolution of the early 20th century. More information can be found here.

Bio to be added soon

Mimi is a human rights activist passionate about women's and children's rights. Graduated in Law in the Democratic Republic of Congo, she specialised in Family Law. She worked as a trainee lawyer in a solicitor's firm in Kinshasa. She came to Northern Ireland in 2009 seeking protection from political persecution in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Since 2011, Mimi has organised several seminars and workshops under her name to highlight the abuse of women's rights in DRC at the Northern Ireland Parliament Building Stormont, Belfast City Council, and various community centres. As a result of her relentless quest for justice for women in DRC, in 2012 she was invited before the International Development Committee of the Northern Ireland Assembly to make a case for the abuse of women's rights in DRC. In June 2013, Mimi was part of the Northern Ireland Council for Ethnic Minority delegation sent to Geneva to outline the issues of discrimination facing asylum-seeking and refugee women in Northern Ireland at the 55th session of the UN Committee for the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) on their examination of the UK’s seventh periodic report. In 2015 she was admitted to Queens University Belfast to further her education and graduated in 2018 with an LLM in Human Rights Law. As a human rights activist, Mimi is passionate about helping women who seek refuge or asylum in Northern Ireland. For this perspective, in 2019, she created Northern Ireland Refugees and Asylum Seekers Women Association (Bomoko NI). Bomoko NI is based in Belfast, a unique refugee and asylum seekers-led organisation in Northern Ireland. Bomoko NI brings together women from different backgrounds, cultures, and beliefs to bond and address their issues and concerns.

Bio to be added soon

President of the UK National Black Police Association

Bio to be added soon

Vice President of the UK National Black Police Association

Bio to be added soon

Daz Chandler creates portals to other realms using video, audio, performance and emergent technologies. Passionate about human rights, cultural democracy and access, Daz has founded creative media programs in refugee camps in the SWANA region where they have also produced screen and audio documentaries that have been exhibited internationally. Their written collection of true stories about life on roads less travelled as an independent media-maker is slated for release in 2026 and a section of it was performed as part of The Moth’s Main Stage Event in London, 2019.
As part of The Parallel Effect project, Daz worked as the Artistic Director of the global congregation, Vigil for the Smooth Handfish featuring renowned scientists, researchers and artists from around the world. They also created the unique single-person adventure Message From Another You, utilising AI voice synthesis technology to bring participants a voice message from another version of themselves. In addition to working with imaginative speculation, Daz is interested in challenging sociocultural and political ideas and using imagination or allegory to identify points of engagement between unlikely parties.

Edwin Montgomery is a composer, musician and mixed media artist working across games, immersive theatre, installations and film. They are known for the epic orchestral soundtrack to Warhammer 40,000: Regicide; the dystopian soundtrack to Wasteland; and their live solo performances of original multi-instrumental film scores. Their film credits include the Oscar nominated feature documentary Time, Shireen of al-Walaja and De(a)fying Gravity. Edwin also creates sonic-driven interactive multimedia artworks and games, including Sisyphus Reborn, Neon Cyborg Cat Club and Isolationist Nightclub Simulator. As part of The Parallel Effect they have created sound and music for the global Vigil for the Smooth Handfish and the immersive AI driven work, Message From Another You. Recently they composed the music for the tribute to the late Australian artist, John Olsen, projected onto the Sydney Opera House sails as part of Vivid Sydney.

Safdar Ahmed is a Sydney based artist, musician and scholar. His academic work linking various Muslim reformist thinkers to contemporary paradigms of modernity, was published by IB Tauris beneath the title Reform and Modernity in Islam. He is a founding member of the Refugee Art Project, for which he conducts art workshops with refugees and asylum seekers in detention. Founded to facilitate art workshops for detained asylum seekers, and to display their work in public exhibitions, The Refugee Art Project aims to deepen public understanding about the asylum seeker issue and the realities of Australia’s detention regime. In 2015, Safdar won a Walkley Award in the Artwork category for his documentary webcomic, Villawood: Notes from an Immigration Detention Centre. His multi award-winning graphic novel, Still Alive, was first published by Twelve Panel Press in 2021 and has since been republished in the US, France and Germany.

Paula is a performing, multi-disciplinary artist, facilitator, creative thought partner and third generation educator. For 15 years Paula has continuously been one of the primary conveners in downtown Boston’s annual event, Reading Frederick Douglass Together (RFDT) as a board member of Community Change Inc. (CCI). Her multi-year involvement with RFDT has been enriched by her career as a teacher educator and as a professional development facilitator. Her life as a practicing artist often intersects when working in the public sector and community service. She has been a program administrator and developer in community-based organizations, and as a consultant for philanthropic non-profits. Paula has held faculty appointments at Wheelock College, Lesley University, Bard College, and University of Massachusetts.

Cedric considers himself a Renaissance man. He is writer, creator, and executive producer at Music Mania Television Studios, is a production company specializing in using Apple products to bring in person events (plays, fashion shows, trainings, musical events etc.). to audiences on their phones, tablets, and/or living rooms. As a co-founder of the co-operative company, Future Focus Media, and Youth Training Institute, he produced documentaries and short films. He also has a podcast, THEONECEDBOOGIE on the IHeart platform. For a decade he has coordinated the reading of “What to the Slave is 4th of July?” in Worcester, Massachusetts.

Toni is a graduate of the Clemente Course in the Humanities, class of 2017, a Mass Humanities program. She holds a B.S. in Human services through Springfield College, a master's degree in biblical studies and Doctorate in Divinity through the New York Christian Bible College. She developed an interest in the life and works of Frederick Douglass during her studies with Clemente and has continued to learn more about his works both in the United State sand abroad. She not only hosts annual readings, but also volunteers to speak in local elementary schools to educate the youth about the importance of equality, social justice, and public speaking using Frederick Douglass as a model, with emphasis on his residency within Massachusetts.

Toya has always had a voice but was often too afraid to use it or felt unheard if she did. Through the arts as an outlet, amazing mentors, and spirituality, she has not only found her voice but now works to inspire others to use theirs. Toya began her career in nonprofits at 19 before transitioning over to special education in multiple capacities for 18 years. Latoya has taught as an adjunct professor in education and human services. She also self-led many community initiatives centered on mentoring, activism, and advocacy. Toya tells, shares, and reimagines stories from her home in Springfield, MA.

Jan Carson is a writer and community arts facilitator based in Belfast. She has published three novels, three short story collections and two micro-fiction collections. Her novel The Fire Starters won the EU Prize for Literature for Ireland 2019. Jan’s latest novel, The Raptures was published by Doubleday in early 2022 and was subsequently shortlisted for the An Post Irish Novel of the Year and Kerry Group Novel of the Year. Her short story collection Quickly, While They Still Have Horses was published by Doubleday in April 2024.

Nandi Jola was born in Gqebera, South Africa. She holds a Master of Arts degree in English (Poetry) from Queen’s University, Belfast, Ireland. Nandi Jola is a poet, storyteller, playwright and creative writing facilitator. Nandi is well known in Northern Ireland and beyond for her work in the Arts and Museum and Heritage sector. Among her plays, the topically titled Partition and Mama Don’t Lie, engages with but also seeks to move beyond the Eurocentric themes, was commissioned as part of the Arts Council NI-supported Six Project and Smock Alley Theatre Rachel Baptiste Programme. Partition was opened at the Belfast Film Festival in March 2021 and Mama Don’t Lie showed in Dublin at Dublin Theatre Festival 2022. Nandi Jola’s poetry has been published in New Hibernia Review in America, Bologna in Lettere Italy, and Transposie Festival in Belgium and throughout Ireland. Doire Press published her debut collection, Home Is Neither Here Nor There, in 2022 and has been widely reviewed by Poetry Ireland, Queen’s University Belfast Dublin Book Festival and more. Nandi is the curator of The Golden Shovel Poetry Jukebox having been previously commissioned for a poem called “Black Irish” that featured in the James Joyce programme of the Centre Culturel Irlandais in Paris. Her poem “Crossing Borders” was commissioned by the Herstory and Jerusalem Centre for Women Parallel Peace Project as a conversation through poetry. Her next Poetry collection research on Anthropocene in South Africa in 2022. Nandi has taught at Queen’s University and Ulster University as a Guest lecturer. She is currently working with Museums Northern Ireland on Colonial Legacy and Decolonization of Museums.

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Desiree is an educational storyteller. As a program designer and guest speaker, she delivers history programs that get people talking together about issues like justice, survival, hope, and what it means to thrive. She works with diverse audiences from school children to retired populations to create spaces to dialogue about issues past and present. Her background is in American studies and education.

Anne is a professor of Communication at Stonehill College in Easton, Mass. A native of West Springfield, she is a graduate of UMass-Amherst and holds a doctorate in Rhetoric and a master’s in political communication from The Ohio State University. Her research includes publications on the Lowell Female Labor Reform Association and the Philadelphia Female Antislavery Society. Anne resides with her husband and son in Hopkinton where she serves as vice-president of the Hopkinton Historical Society.

Mark Durkan, Board Member, John & Pat Hume Foundation for Peaceful Change & Reconciliation
Durkan is former deputy First Minister, MP, MLA and Leader of the Social Democratic & Labour Party, negotiator for Good Friday Agreement, and assistant to John Hume (1984-'98). As an MP, Durkan was an officer of the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Human Rights and a founder member and officer of APPG on Human Trafficking and Modern Slavery. On the Bill Committee for the Modern Slavery Act, he tabled and pushed amendments working closely with Anti-Slavery International - the world's oldest anti-slavery organisation - founded by Daniel O'Connell.

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Senior Law Lecturer (Ulster University) and Barrister

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Martin Murray is an alumnus of QUB and Ulster Business School. Outside of their day job as the Medical Workforce Co-Ordinator for Cancer and Specialist Services at Belfast Trust, they dedicate their time to assuring equality and opportunity for the LGBTQ community in Sports across Ireland as Ulster and Connaught Liaison of Sporting Pride. Some of their successful projects include developing LGBTQ Sports Organisations which have amassed an estimate of over 500 members in the last 2 years. This work has led to Martin representing the community on debates and discussions via The Guardian, BBC, Virgin Media, with politicians at Stormont and in their own regular column in GNI Magazine. Outside of Sports Activism Martin is Secretary for Quire Belfast which will represent Northern Ireland at the HAND in Hand LGBTQ Choir Festival in Bristol this year & performs as Drag Artist 'Danú Variant' which has been a great tool for attracting attention to the development of the LGBTQ Sports Scene. Martin has several nominations for Belfast Sports Awards, The Gala Awards, GNI Awards and Belfast Pride Awards and was the recipient of Ulster Business Schools Innovative Entrepreneurship Award of Excellence 2015.

Dr Kieran Higgins is a Lecturer in Higher Education Practice at Ulster University and was formerly a Lecturer in Sustainable Development at Queen’s University Belfast. Kieran is an applied psychologist working in areas of the environment, education, and health, with a particular focus on how those issues intersect with sustainability and equality, diversity and inclusion.

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Micah Williams is currently a Ph.D. student studying English at the University of Rochester in Rochester, NY. He serves as president of Graduate Students of Color (GSOC), an organization dedicated to enhancing the social and professional experiences of underrepresented students at the U of R, and as a writing consultant for the University Writing Center. Since graduating from the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) with a B.A. in English and Philosophy, Micah’s research interests center on exploring and highlighting the ways African American literature, media, and philosophy contribute to social justice and our conception of the human—especially along the lines of race, gender, and sexuality. In 2022, Micah received the UAB President’s Diversity Champion Award, the Outstanding Student Award in the Philosophy Department, and the Dean’s Outstanding Undergraduate Student Award.

Bio to be added soon

Professor McKivigan received a B.A. degree from Indiana University of Pennsylvania (1971) and his M.A. (1973) and Ph.D. (1977) from the Ohio State University. He was an editor of the Frederick Douglass Papers and adjunct member of the History and Afro-American and African Studies department at Yale University from 1979 to 1989. In the latter year, McKivigan joined the History department at West Virginia University, where he taught until coming to IUPUI in August 1998. McKivigan is an expert in the historical study of the American antislavery movement. In 1984, he published The War Against Proslavery Religion which analyzed the abolitionists' campaign to enlist the Northern churches in the antislavery movement. In 1996, he published an annotated edition of James Redpath's The Roving Editor; or, Talks with the Slaves in the Southern States (1859). He recently co-edited two collections of original scholarly essays on the antebellum slavery controversy, Religion and the Antebellum Debate over Slavery (1998) and Antislavery Violence (forthcoming 1999). In addition, he has published more than thirty scholarly articles on various aspects on abolitionist activities. Since 1994, McKivigan has been the director of the Frederick Douglass Papers, a documentary editing project supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Historical Publications and Records Commission, which has relocated on the Indianapolis campus. The next volume of that project's work, a new edition of The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, will be published in 1999 by Yale University Press.

Ezra Greenspan is Edmund J. and Louise W. Kahn Chair in Humanities and Professor of English at Southern Methodist University. He is a literary, media, and social historian specializing in the history and culture of the modern United States. His books include William Wells Brown: An African American LIfe (finalist for the 2015 National Book Critics Circle Award for Biography, the Frederick Douglass Book Prize, and the Texas Institute of Letters book prize), George Palmer Putnam: Representative American Publisher (winner of the 2001 American Publishers Association Award for Best Scholarly Biography), and Walt Whitman and the American Reader. He is also the founding co-editor of the scholarly journal, Book History (winner of the 1997 Award for Best New Journal from the Council of Editors of Scholarly Journals).

He is currently at work on a comprehensive family biography to be called Frederick Douglass and His People: A Family Biography, which will offer a history of the generic Bailey/Douglass family from the moment of European/African/Native contact in Maryland through eight generations of enslavement and into the twentieth century.

Danjuma Gibson is a professor of pastoral theology, care and counseling, at Calvin Theological Seminary. He is also in private practice as a psychotherapist in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Prior to joining Calvin Seminary, he was the senior pastor of a church in Chicago for over sixteen years and was also bivocational as a commercial banker during that time. His most recent book—Frederick Douglass, A Psychobiography: Rethinking Subjectivity in the Western Experiment of Democracy (2018)—is an investigation into the formation of Douglass’ psychological and religious identity in the context of trauma and the American slavocracy. In addition to emotional and psychological trauma, Dr. Gibson’s current research includes exploring the intersection of black religious experience and psychoanalytic discourse in a way that is accretive to how we understand personhood, identity formation, and human flourishing. Dr. Gibson earned his Bachelor of Arts from Morehouse College, Master of Business Administration from DePaul University, Master of Arts in Urban Ministry and Master of Christian Studies from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, and Doctor of Philosophy from Garrett Evangelical Theological Seminary. He received his clinical training from the Center for Religion and Psychotherapy of Chicago where he earned an Advance Certificate in Psychotherapy and Religion. Dr. Gibson holds memberships in the American Academy of Religion, The Society of Pastoral Theology, and the Society for the Study of Black Religion.

Bio to be added soon

Black Cultural Archives Learning and Engagement Manager at the Black Culutral Archives (UK)

Bio to be added soon

Ulster University MFA Photography student

Bio to be added soon

Born in the town of Tuskegee, Alabama, at the historic Tuskegee Institute (now Tuskegee University), Ms. Douglass has the unique distinction of being “heir of two great Americans.” She is the first person to unite the two bloodlines of Booker T. Washington and Frederick Douglass through the union of her mother, Nettie Hancock Washington (granddaughter of Booker T. Washington), and her father, Dr. Frederick Douglass III (great-grandson of Frederick Douglass).

Ms. Douglass began representing one or both of her famous ancestors at special events when she was just a little girl. She presented the first 1950 San Francisco minted Booker T. Washington Commemorative Half Dollar to Joe DiMaggio; speaking at the New York State Sesquicentennial (150th) Anniversary Celebration in 1977 (where she received a citation naming her Ambassador of Goodwill); being commissioned a Kentucky Colonel; having a day named in her honor in Easton, MD; making her “acting” debut in Rochester, NY, and speaking at City Hall in Hamilton, Bermuda are just a few of Ms. Douglass’s numerous and varied appearances. On June 19, 2013, she also spoke at the dedication of the Frederick Douglass bronze statue at Washington DC’s Capitol Visitors Center in Emancipation Hall. She was in the company of her son, Kenneth, and America’s top leaders.

While Ms. Douglass gets tremendous pleasure from her “living history,” presentations to students throughout the country are profoundly fulfilling. Still vivid in her memory is what she describes as her most heartwarming experience to date. She accepted the challenge to assist in the fundraising efforts of the award-winning Frederick Douglass High School Marching Band of Atlanta, Georgia. Ms. Douglass’s commitment to these students proved to be successful, thus allowing them to accept the invitation of Bermuda officials to perform in the Bermuda Day Parade. The Frederick Douglass High School Marching Band has the distinction of being the first “off island” band to be invited to perform in Bermuda’s second-largest holiday celebration. “Witnessing an entire country embrace ninety-six students from an inner-city school is an experience I will treasure always.”

Ms. Douglass served as the national spokesperson for the “African-American Heritage Check Series.” She was instrumental in successfully introducing the check series to the Riggs National Bank of Washington (DC), the U.S. Department of Agriculture Credit Union and the Bank South Corporation of Georgia, now known as Bank of America. In recognition of this celebrated endeavor, Ms. Douglass was given a “key to the city” of Memphis, Tennessee, by its mayor and a citation from the mayor of Washington, DC.

Ms. Douglass considers her greatest honor to be the publishing of one of her speeches along with the most noted speeches of Frederick Douglass and Booker T. Washington: “What to the Slave is the 4th of July?” and the “Atlanta Cotton Exposition” speech, respectively. The speeches were featured in “Vital Issues – The Journal of African American Speeches.” Ms. Douglass is a past volunteer for the United Negro College Fund (founded by Dr. Frederick D. Patterson, the third President of Tuskegee Institute) and the Georgia State Games. She served on the Board of Directors for the Friends of Frederick Douglass Museum in Washington, DC and also serves on the Board of Directors for Frederick Douglass Family Initiatives.

While her life is decorated with honors, the best part has been raising her family. Her children are Kenneth B. Morris, Jr, Nettie Douglass Morris and Douglass Washington Morris.

Lux Eterna is an Australian-Palestinian interdisciplinary artist working across forms of performance, dance, drawing and lens media. All are underpinned by practices of embodied sensitivities, mainly invoked through dance and desert based mystic experiences. Lux asks how such methods may be deployed as technological tools for our post-human futures? With a focus on creating work that is pro-social and process-driven, while using embodied practices to delve into our collective imagination infrastructures, Lux is curious about how we apply our shared findings to what we call ‘new-worlding.’ Also asking how our shared cultivating of land-informed spiritual ecologies and animistic kinships with our more-than-human, may author our approaching realities.

Warren Armstrong is a writer and new media artist with a background in law, virtual reality, augmented reality, mobile app-based art, and interactive data-driven works. He has provided significant creative and technical input into complex, technology-drive art projects that have been staged at a variety of festivals globally. These include Dark Mofo (Aus), Melbourne Festival, Underbelly Arts Festival, Cairns Festival, Cementa, ISEA Istanbul (Turkey), Bristol Biennale (UK), Vrystaat Kunstefees (Bloemfontein, South Africa), and iJacking Hannover (Germany). He was also the recipient of the 2017 Paramor Art + Innovation prize for his collaboration with Susannah Williams on the large scale installation, ‘Felt Histories.’

Jack Crangle is an Irish Research Council Postdoctoral Fellow at Maynooth University, working on a project called Black Ireland: race, culture and nationhood in the Irish Republic, 1948-95. Prior to this, he worked at the University of Manchester. Jack completed his PhD in Modern History at Queen’s University Belfast. His first monograph is entitled Migrants, Immigration and Diversity in Twentieth-century Northern Ireland: British, Irish or 'Other’? (Palgrave Studies in Migration History, 2023). With an interest in migration, oral history and public history, Jack has published his research in Immigrants & Minorities, Oral History, Irish Studies Review and the Journal of Migration History. He has also written for The Conversation and contributed to various blogs and podcasts.

AOIBHA is an indie-folk artist from Belfast, Northern Ireland. Influenced by artists like Joni Mitchell, Norah Jones and Phoebe Bridgers, AOIBHA writes with a raw vulnerability that translates into soft, haunting melodies. AOIBHA was recently announced as the Chordblossom Kickstart Runner Up in 2023 and has been marked as an artist to watch in 2024 by the Belfast Telegraph and Daily Mirror.

Participants #DW 2024