2022 Presenters, Black New England Conference

• • 2021 Black New England Conference

• • Keynote Speakers

16th Annual Black New England Conference:

Where the Money Resides: An Exploration of Racialized Access & Historic Exclusion from Wealth

Biographies of Panelists and Moderators

In order of appearance 

GUIDED TOUR

Anthony Poore has over 30 years of experience in the community economic development sector. He has worked as a community organizer, economic development practitioner, academic, workforce housing and public health advocate, policy analyst, researcher, and executive addressing the needs of New Hampshire’s urban and rural communities through participatory cross-sector collaborative processes in support of sustainable, inclusive, and equitable communities.

Rachael Kane is the Senior Museum Educator at the Currier Museum of Art. A lifelong New England resident, Rachael studied anthropology, foreign language, and visual arts as an undergraduate before pursuing a master’s degree in American Material Culture. Her professional focuses include the study of textiles, the history of illustration, and reparative museum practices. At the Currier, she builds inclusive, narrative-driven interpretation that highlights the rich, complex histories of American art and craftsmanship.

PANEL #1: THE RISE AND FALL OF ENSLAVED AND FREE BLACKS OF AFFLUENCE

Marcus Nevius

Marcus P. Nevius is Associate Professor of Africana Studies and History at the University of Rhode Island.  He holds a B.A. and an M.A. in history from North Carolina Central University, and a  Ph.D. in history from The Ohio State University. He teaches the histories of  African Americans, slave resistance, slavery-based economies, and abolition during the Age of Revolutions (1775-1848).  He is the author of City of Refuge: Slavery and Petit Marronage in the Great Dismal Swamp, 1763-1856, published in the University of Georgia Press’s Race in the Atlantic World 1700-1900 series, and he has written articles and book reviews for History Compass, the William and Mary Quarterly, the Journal of African American History, the Journal of Southern History, and H-Net Civil War.  His work and commentary have been featured in the Boston Globe and in JSTOR Daily.

Dr. Karlos K. Hill is Regents’ Professor of African and African American Studies at the University of Oklahoma. He is also a proud affiliate faculty within the OU History  Department and Schusterman Center for Judaic and Israeli Studies. Dr. Hill is the author of three books: Beyond The Rope: The Impact of Lynching on Black Culture and Memory, The Murder of Emmett Till: A Graphic History, and The 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre: A Photographic History. His book on the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre won the 2022 Lynn McIntoch Award for Excellence and the 2022 Joan Kerr Patterson Book Award from the Western Historical Association. Dr. Hill founded the Tulsa Race Massacre Oklahoma Teacher’s Institute to support teaching the history of the race massacre to thousands of middle school and high school students. He also serves on the boards of the Clara Luper Legacy Committee and the Board of Scholars for Facing History and Ourselves. He currently writes a series for The Nation magazine featuring the stories and work of community activists organizing for justice in Black communities.

Najee Ayman Brown has produced his own music and plays, including The Bus Stop, which sold out six times in New York City.  Brown co-wrote and directed the musical Glimmerings of Hope, which premiered in New York City and toured Michigan in 2019. That same year in Edinburgh, Scotland he directed and choreographed the award-winning musical, Henry Box Brown:  A Musical Journey. Brown, who has performed at Carnegie Hall and the Apollo Theater, currently oversees the Seacoast Repertory Theatre’s Sol Series, presenting Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) narratives. Stokely and Martin and Nevaeh’s Brother are his latest plays. In 2011 he founded Mindlezz Thoughtz to help aspiring artists. Most recently, he created Theater for The People, a BIPOC-produced touring company.  Brown recently received a 2022 Black Lives Matter Seacoast Excellence Award.

David Watters (Moderator) a New Hampshire state senator, has taught English at the University of New Hampshire since 1978, with a focus on American literature, New England studies, and New Hampshire literature and culture.  He is frequently heard on New Hampshire Public Radio as a consultant for Granite State Stories and the Immigration Project. Deeply concerned about preserving history, culture, arts, and the environment, Watters serves on the Black Heritage Trail’s board of directors. He has also been a trustee or board member of the New Hampshire Historical Society, the  New Hampshire Humanities, Pontine Movement Theatre, Strawbery Banke Museum’s Center for the Study of Community, and the Robert Frost Farm. He has given talks at hundreds of local libraries and historical societies.

PANEL #2: BY DECREE: LAWS & SYSTEMIC BARRIERS TO THE ACQUISITION OF WEALTH

Richard Rothstein is a Distinguished Fellow of the Economic Policy Institute and a Senior Fellow (emeritus) at the Thurgood Marshall Institute of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. He is the author of The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America, an exploration of how federal, state, and local policy explicitly segregated metropolitan areas nationwide, creating racially homogenous neighborhoods in patterns that violate the Constitution. He is also the author of  Class and Schools: Using Social, Economic and Educational Reform to Close the Black–White Achievement Gap and Grading Education: Getting Accountability Right. Many of his articles on race and education may be found at http://www.epi.org/people/richard-rothstein/  He welcomes questions and comments at riroth@epi.org

Karen Spiller has over twenty years of experience and is the Principal of KAS Consulting. With a focus on racial equity and intersectionality, Karen works with local, state, regional, and national organizations committed to creating equitable public health and sustainable food systems. Involved in state-wide and regional food system work, Karen is a steering committee member of Massachusetts and coordinating Ambassador for Food Solutions New England (FSNE), a six-state network focused on food system transformation with racial equity at its core. She currently is a board member of the Boston Food Forest Coalition, Sustainable Business Network of Massachusetts, NOFA/Mass, and American Independent Business Alliance (AMIBA). Karen is also a founding member of the Southern New England Farmers of Color Collaborative (SNEFCC). As the Thomas W. Haas Professor in Sustainable Food Systems at the University of New Hampshire, Durham, Karen is engaged in scholarship on the intersection of networks and racial equity across the campus and its surrounding community, extending to higher education partners nationally and internationally. Celebrating its 8 ^th year of national and international participation last April, Karen co-leads the FSNE’s 21 -Day Habit Building Challenge designed to “build skill and will” and action to address racial inequities, through a food system lens. 

Shelly Walcott (Moderator) is a Media Relations Specialist.  Before this role, Shelley worked for 20 years as a news anchor and reporter at CNN and various television stations across the country, including WMUR-TV in New Hampshire. Shelley has covered national stories, including the 2012 presidential campaign and the aftermath of a mass shooting at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin. She has won numerous industry awards, including a “Gracie” from the Alliance for Women in Media Foundation. Shelley lives in Windham, NH, with her husband and two children

LUNCHTIME ADDRESS

Mehrsa Baradaran a professor of law, the University of California, Irvine, writes about banking law, financial inclusion, inequality, and the racial wealth gap. Her book, The Color of Money: Black Banks and the Racial Wealth Gap, was named the Best Book of the Year by the Urban Affairs Association. In 2017, her article, "The New Deal with Black America," was presented at the Stanford/Harvard/Yale Junior Faculty Forum. Other articles by Baradaran include "Jim Crow Credit," Irvine Law Review; "Banking and the Social Contract," Notre Dame Law Review; and "How the Poor Got Cut Out of Banking," Emory Law Journal.  Her work has been featured in the New York Times, the Atlantic, Slate, American Banker, the Wall Street Journal, and Financial Times; on National Public Radio’s “Marketplace,” C-SPAN’s “Washington Journal,” and Public Broadcasting Service’s “NewsHour.”

PANEL #3: THE MYTH OF BLACK EXCEPTIONALISM: PATHS TO BLACK ECONOMIC POWER 

Raymond T. Diamond has taught law at Tulane University and Louisiana State University where he also served as vice chancellor for faculty development and institutional advancement.  He is the co-author of the award-winning book, Brown v. Board of Education: Caste, Culture, and the Constitution; former chair of the Section on Legal History of the Association of American Law Schools; and a former board member of The Journal of Southern Legal History. His scholarship has been cited three times in Supreme Court jurisprudence, including an amicus brief presented by the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). He co-authored "Helpless by Law: Enduring Lessons from a Century-Old Tragedy" (Connecticut Law Review, May 2022), which, among other things, examines the destruction by Whites of Greenwood, an African-American neighborhood in Tulsa Oklahoma in 1921.

Renel Domond, founder and co-owner of Juice Kings in Stamford, CT, learned how to write a business plan through Southern New Hampshire University’s Project AIM (Achieving Independence and Mobility), which offers incarcerated individuals a path to a college degree. He notes he was an entrepreneur even in grade school when he’d buy candy bars or Pokemon cards to sell to his classmates – at a profit. He became a believer in the healing value of plant-based foods after suffering severe leg injuries while playing basketball when he was in prison. With a steady diet of plant-based food, Domond says he was able to stop taking the blood thinners he was told he’d need for the rest of his life. He opened Juice Kings in October 2020, during the height of COVID.

Marlene Kim is a professor of economics at the University of Massachusetts-Boston. She specializes in race and gender discrimination and the working poor. She is the editor of Race and Economic Opportunity in the Twenty-First Century (Routledge, 2007), as well as numerous scholarly articles on these topics. Recently, she has been featured on NPR, CNN, CBS, the Associated Press, the Boston Globe, and USA Today, discussing Asian-Americans in the US. She serves on the editorial boards of numerous scholarly journals and holds a Ph.D. in economics from the University of California, Berkeley. 

L. Chris Matthews (Moderator) teaches business administration and management at Southern New Hampshire University, directs the university’s honors program, and created Project AIM, which offers incarcerated individuals a path to a college degree. His research focuses on organizational culture, global leadership practices, and social justice and equity. Courses he’s developed include Leadership Through Dance, Innovations in Business, and Social Issues in Communities. Before Matthews’ time in New Hampshire, he was in Chicago where he directed fundraising events for the AIDS Foundation and taught at Roosevelt University. He serves in leadership roles for several nonprofit organizations including the Endowment for Health, World Affairs Council of NH, Downtown Manchester YMCA Advisory Board, New England Names Project, Granite State Gay Men’s Association, Hooksett Area Rotary Club, and Queen City Pride.

KEYNOTE CONVERSATION

Dr. Ibram X. Kendi is the Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities at Boston University, and the founding director of the BU Center for Antiracist Research. He is a contributing writer at The Atlantic and a CBS News racial justice contributor.   Dr. Kendi is the author of many highly acclaimed books including Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America, which won the National Book Award for Nonfiction, making him the youngest ever winner of that award. He had also produced five straight #1 New York Times bestsellers, including How to Be an Antiracist, Antiracist Baby, and Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You, co-authored by Jason Reynolds. In 2020, Time magazine named Dr. Kendi one of the 100 most influential people in the world. He was awarded a 2021 MacArthur Fellowship, popularly known as the Genius Grant. His next two books, coming out in June, are How to Raise an Antiracist and the picture book, Goodnight Racism.

Dr. Reginald A. Wilburn serves as the inaugural Associate Provost for Undergraduate Affairs at Texas Christian University (TCU).  Immediately before this role, he served as Dean for the School of Interdisciplinary Studies at TCU after a successful 16-year career as a scholar-teacher at the University of New Hampshire.  Dr. Wilburn specializes in African American Literature and Milton Studies with corollary emphases in black music and women and gender studies.  Among his several published articles in Milton Studies and other essay collections, Dr. Wilburn is the author of Preaching the Gospel of Black Revolt:  Appropriating Milton in Early African American Literature (Duquesne UP, 2014).  It is the first and only comprehensive study of African Americans’ intertextual receptions of John Milton, England’s Christian and Epic poet of liberty.   An engaging critical/creative thinker, academic panelist, and public speaker, Dr. Wilburn has interviewed luminary scholars the likes of Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Annette Gordon-Reed, served alongside Laura Knoy on several New Hampshire NPR public humanities events, and studiously engaged renowned Pulitzer prize-winning poets like Jericho Brown and other celebrated cultural critics at numerous Portsmouth Black Heritage Trail programs for the past 16 years.  

PANEL #4: WEALTH MATTERS IN BLACK & WHITE 

Daniel Fontenot was born in New York and raised in Georgia, his father was a son of a sharecropper from the deep south of Louisiana, and his mother was the daughter of an Afro-Colombian immigrant. Currently, Daniel is pursuing higher education in Environmental Science, with a focus on Natural Resource Management. Daniel Fontenot has over 12 years of experience in corporate business management for the Hospitality and Healthcare industries; as well as about 7 years in small business ownership and management in sports sciences and the outdoor recreation industry.  His passion is in environmental equity, by providing developing nations and low-income communities with a sense of economic prowess through natural resource management.

Stephanie Harvey is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of New Hampshire, seeking a doctorate in education with a focus on policy and leadership. She hopes to launch a program this fall that will create a safe place for UNH instructors to discuss racialized issues that arise in education. Before moving to New Hampshire, Harvey taught middle school language arts in New York City’s public schools. At UNH she is the Graduate Student Senate’s community coordinator, organizing social gatherings to bring students together across disciplines. She also is a peer advisor and board member of UNH’s McNair Scholars Program which encourages select undergraduates to pursue doctorate degrees

Melanie Haas is an Assistant Teaching Professor at Syracuse University. Before this position, she worked at colleges and universities in Texas and Arkansas, which fostered her dedication to diversity and inclusion. As a result, her research interests focus on rhetorics of power structures, diversity and inclusion, and intersectionality. She is also interested in popular culture rhetoric and she was the lead editor and a contributor for Antiheroines of Contemporary Media: Saints, Sinners, and Survivors, published in late 2020. Haas earned her Ph.D. in Rhetoric from Texas Woman’s University in 2021, her M.A. in 2012, and her B.A. in 2008, both from Tarleton State University.

Joel Haas has spent the last nine years with Saint-Gobain Abrasives in several different capacities, most recently being as a Technical Sales Rep. Working alongside all levels of employment from entry-level to the executive has spotlighted the racial disparity in those who are in leadership positions. This experience has created a desire to remedy inequality and eliminate barriers for underrepresented populations. His research interests are in business & equity rhetoric and how they intersect with higher education pedagogy and racial and social justice. Joel earned his MBA from Southern New Hampshire University in 2022 and his B.A. in English from Tarleton State University in 2008.

Nicole Sublette is an anti-racist educator who has worked in the human services field in New Hampshire for more than 20 years. She is a licensed psychotherapist, a certified hypnotherapist, Reiki master, empowerment coach, social advocate, feminist mentor, a doctoral candidate in bioenergetic medicine, and mother of three. Nicole is a member of the board of directors of the National Alliance on Mental Illness-NH (NAMI). Her practice specializations include women’s issues, BIPOC, LGTBQIA+2S, multicultural issues, and racial trauma. In an interview with NHPR, Sublette noted that race-based traumatic stress is similar to PTSD, especially in symptoms. However, she notes racial trauma can be “a wearing down of one's self because it's repeated incidents.

PANEL #5: A GENEROUS SPIRIT: BLACK PHILANTHROPY THEN & NOW 

Bithiah Carter is CEO and president of New England Blacks in Philanthropy, which seeks to “inform, reform, and transform the practice of philanthropy.” More specifically, the Boston-based nonprofit, founded in 2007, works toward “a paradigm shift in philanthropy from focusing on Black deficits to shining a light on our considerable potential and financial leverage…”  Its tagline or motto is “Our gift is giving Black.”  The organization works to “create a strong Black community capable of advocating on its own behalf … and moving toward self-sufficiency. We seek to grow the social consciousness of philanthropy…[and] establish better partnerships to create a balanced, holistic approach to funding.” Carter previously worked for the 50-year-old Association of Black Foundation Executives (ABFE).

Dennis Creary is the president and CEO of Blacks on Wall Street, Inc., a New York City nonprofit he founded in 2014 “to close the professional opportunity gap by providing underrepresented youth the resources to achieve promising careers.” Among other things, BOWS advocates the equitable distribution of philanthropic dollars generated annually in New York City. Creary has a deep background in nonprofit, financial, and technology services and currently is a director at the tech company, Oracle. “I made very conscious choices to only join firms that recognized the importance of talent over an individual’s color,” says Creary, who moved to New York City in 2001. He also finds time to pursue his interests as an equestrian and fencer.

Wendy McNeil is known in nonprofit circles for being a creative and strong, yet collaborative, executive leader with knowledge of all phases of nonprofit management and fund development. As a consultant, she has worked in partnership with staff, trustees, and volunteers to raise more than $40 million during her career, including a single $1.5 million naming opportunity. Her clients have included: New Jersey PBS, St. Barnabas Medical Center; Catholic Charities of Newark; Immaculate Conception High School, Montclair, NJ; Covenant House, New York; Sharron Miller Performing Arts Center; Frost Valley YMCA; YMCA of Montclair, NJ; Newark Arts Council; and Urban and Rural AmeriCorps. She has helped dozens of organizations identify new funding sources, develop strategic plans, and conduct feasibility studies.

Richard Ober leads the New Hampshire Charitable Foundation, the largest private provider of nonprofit grants and student aid in northern New England. The Foundation manages more than $1 billion in charitable funds donated by hundreds of families and individuals, and awards some 7,000 grants and scholarships exceeding $60 million annually. Dick has 30 years of experience in nonprofit management and civic affairs. Before coming to the Foundation, he held senior staff positions at the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests and the Monadnock Conservancy. He has served on numerous nonprofit boards and public commissions, including several Gubernatorial appointments. Dick currently serves as a board member of the Center for Effective Philanthropy and Community Foundations Leading Change (CF Leads) organization. He is also the founder and chair of the Community Foundation Opportunity Network (CFON). Dick has written and lectured widely on community philanthropy, civic life, and the connections between people and the places they live. His work has been published in books, book chapters, magazines, and journals. He has been recognized with awards from the Environmental Protection Agency, the State of New Hampshire, and Plymouth State University, and has repeatedly been named as one of the state’s most influential people by leading NH business publications. Dick lives with his wife and daughter in Dublin, New Hampshire. 

Kenneth Holmes is the senior vice provost for student affairs at the University of New Hampshire. Before he was at UNH, Ken was the chief student affairs officer at Howard University. Prior to joining Howard, he held similar roles at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, the University of Bridgeport and Binghamton University. He improved services for special needs populations, created an academic achievement floors program in residence halls to improve the freshman to sophomore retention rate, revised the code of conduct and reorganized university counseling services to better meet the needs of students.

PANEL #6: ECONOMIC POWER, BLACK ENTREPRENEURSHIP, AND THE NEW VIRTUAL ECONOMY

Andrea Williamson, a financial advisor for Edward Jones in Kennebunk, Maine, also is an inclusion leader for 10 Edward Jones areas, working to increase, race and gender diversity among financial advisors.  Before joining Edward Jones, she spent 15 years with Allstate insurance, where she served in both sales and risk management, providing sales training and life insurance solutions to cross-functional teams. Allstate awarded Williamson with three Key Leader Awards, one Quality Award for Excellence, and one Coach of the Year Award. She was awarded an executive education scholarship from Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management, where she attended the practical innovators' course. Williamson also spent seven years at the Pentagon and in the United States Air Force European Joint Command.

Kaira Carter-Taylor is provost of Academic Retention and Academic Affairs at the University of Fort Lauderdale in Florida as well as an adjunct faculty member at Southern New Hampshire University.  Her international business research has taken her to Brazil and Serbia to study those nations’ politics, economics, history, and culture. She has done research on the economic, historical, and cultural environments in Brazil and Serbia. At the University of Fort Lauderdale, she has taught a variety of business courses, in which she encourages her students to think critically about business concepts and stay current on new business developments. She was honored for Best Faculty Presentation out of 23 presenters at the 2016 Phi Beta Delta International Business Conference.

Wheeler del Torro is a nutritional anthropologist who specializes in building relationships in a digital world through healthy eating. For over 20 years, del Torro has utilized food as a catalyst for dialogue in corporate, academic, and social settings. Over the years, del Torro has created, owned, and operated a wide range of lifestyle businesses. He began his professional career hosting pop-ups around the world and has owned a number of food-related businesses including the innovative, dairy-free ice cream line Wheeler's Frozen Desserts Co. He has published books on topics from cooking to entrepreneurship in order to share the knowledge he has curated with others. His most recent book, "12 Things I Learned About Entrepreneurship from Ice T", captures his learnings from a conference the two hosted at Sloan Business School in Boston.

Dottie Morris, (Moderator) is associate vice president for institutional diversity and equity at Keene State College. She also is co-chair of Keene’s racial justice committee, dedicated to addressing racism in the city; and she serves on the governor’s Advisory Council on Diversity and Inclusion, as well as his statewide COVID-19 Equity Response Team.  Dr. Morris has worked for the World Learning School for International Training Institute (SIT) in Brattleboro, VT; the Clinical Mental Health Counseling Program at Antioch University New England; and the Colorado State University Counseling Center. “Now, more than ever, we need to take a much deeper look at how each one of us may be contributing to injustice and inequity, no matter how innocently or unintentionally we may do this,” says Dr. Morris.

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