Iminah Ahmad  is an educator, singer/songwriter, dancer, and Oakland native. As a youth, she overcame many trials that trap young Black women in the sex trafficking & school to prison pipeline. A product of Oakland’s African centered schools and OUSD, she has dedicated her life to inspire excellence and activate achievement in the youth of today. As an educational activist, Iminah has been heavily influential in implementing key policies and initiatives aimed at amplifying youth voice and improving life outcomes for students of color throughout the SF Bay Area. Her life's mission is to uplift the educational and life experience for African girls and women worldwide. In 2017 she partnered with OUSD to launch the first ever district wide initiative in the nation, focused on advancement of Black female students, the African American Female Excellence initiative (AAFE), serving as the lead consultant. She is currently leading OUSD’s African American Female Excellence Initiative with the goal of improving the educational experiences and life outcomes for Black female students. She is also an artist-educator with the Girls Empowerment Through the Arts (GETA) program in the Bay Area. 

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Aida Salazar​ is an award-winning author and arts activist whose writings for adults and children explore issues of identity and social justice. Originally from Los Angeles, CA, but now based in Oakland, CA, she is the author of the middle grade verse novels, THE MOON WITHIN (International Latino Book Award Winner), THE LAND OF THE CRANES, and the bio picture book JOVITA WORE PANTS: THE STORY OF A REVOLUTIONARY FIGHTER (Spring, 2022); all published by Scholastic. Aida is slated to co-edit with Yamile Saied Méndez, CALLING THE MOON: A middle grade anthology on menstruation by writers of color (Candlewick Press 2022). 

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Aida is committed to arts education and is an artist-educator with the Girls Empowerment Through the Arts (GETA) program. She is also a founding member of Las Musas - a Latinx kidlit debut author collective. Her story, BY THE LIGHT OF THE MOON, was adapted into a ballet production by the Sonoma Conservatory of Dance and is the first Xicana-themed ballet in history. 

 

 

Mahogany L. Browne is a writer, organizer, vocalist, performance poet, and educator. Her YA poetry book Black Girl Magic celebrates a black girlhood that is “free, unforgettable, and luminous” (School Library Journal). Her children’s book, Woke Baby, was written for all the littlest progressives who grow up to change the world. Her poetry collections include Kissing Caskets and the NAACP-nominated chapbook Redbone. She co-edited the anthology The Breakbeat Poets Vol. 3: Black Girl Magic, declared by Dazed as “one of the most important volumes of poetry in recent years.” She is also the author of the YA anthology WOKE: A Young Poets Guide To Justice, co-edited with Elizabeth Acevedo and Olivia Gatwood. Her most recent book is Chlorine Sky. 

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Born in Oakland, California, Browne dropped out of high school after being told not to write poetry during a English honors class. Using her personal experiences with addiction, racism, sexism, and oppression to inspire her own brand of shameless authentic work, Mahogany’s spoken word performances create a platform for women and girls to feel empowered and heard. 

 

Mahogany has a MFA in Writing and Activism from Pratt Institute, where she founded the Women Writers of Color Reading Room and became the director of the Black Lives Matter program. She is an artist-educator with the Girls Empowerment Through the Arts (GETA) program. She is the one of the co-founders of the socially active literary collective #BlackPoetsSpeakOut, created out of urgency and as a response to the non-indictment of the Mike Brown’s murderer.

Mahogony is the publisher of Penmanship Books, curator of the Nuyorican Poets Cafe Friday Night Slam, founder of the Women Writers of Color Reading Room, and the director of Black Lives Matter at Pratt Institute, and artistic director at Urban Word NYC. She is the recipient of literary fellowships from Agnes Gund, Air Serenbe, Cave Canem, Poets House, and Rauschenberg. 

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Jennah Bell is an Oakland-grown singer/songwriter whose songwriting and undefinable genre is a direct product of her proud Bay Area roots. Her musical sensibility and sound stem from a colorful palette of Folk, Soul, R&B, Hip‐Hop, and Bluegrass.

 

As a young artist Jennah was selected by the Grammy Foundation to participate in the summer program under the tutelage of Jimmy Jam, Paul Williams, and David Foster, each of who nurtured her unique writing style. This experience encouraged Jennah to further her studies at the Berklee College of Music, where she immersed herself in a community of artists, and found much inspiration in her peers and professors. Included in her supporters is the legendary Paul Simon who extended his expertise and mentorship to the burgeoning artist. Jenna’s experience as a young artist helped her understand the importance of mentorship for young artists and one of the ways she does this is through her work as an artist-educator with the Girls Empowerment Through the Arts (GETA) program.

 

Jennah released her first self-produced EP, the experimental “Early Bird, in 2011”. She released a 3‐piece acoustic set “Live at Mother,” EP in 2012, which was profiled on Okayplayer.com. She has shared the stage with artists such as Hiatus Kaiyote, Cody Chesnutt, Gregory Porter, Alice Smith, KING, and Eric Benet; and performed at the BET Awards, CMJ’s Music Marathon, SXSW Music Festival, Blue Note Jazz Festival, the main stage of The Roots Picnic, and the prestigious 2013 North Sea Jazz Festival in Rotterdam.  Jennah is currently working on her debut studio album titled, “Anatomy”  with contributions from Grammy winning mix engineer and producer, Russell Elevado, Neal Pogue -- and multi‐Grammy winning songwriter, musician and multi‐platinum producer James Poy.