Solitude

Delegation 2023-Present

Research Consortium

Maya Garza is an attorney in Los Angeles; CA. Maya’s practice focuses on public records act litigation. She is also the General Counsel for Aging People in Prison Human Rights Campaign, an abolitionist organization that focuses on zealous advocacy on behalf of elderly Black prisoners seeking release. Maya has worked as a mitigation specialist on death penalty and juvenile resentencing cases and, while in law school, successfully represented multiple California lifers at their parole consideration hearings. Maya graduated from UCLA Law, where she specialized in Public Interest Law and Policy and Critical Race Studies. She also received a master’s in urban and regional planning from UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs and a BA from the Johns Hopkins University. 2024 Delegation.

Krystal Young is a Philadelphia activist and justice impacted person. The gentrification she witnessed in her Philadelphia community that led her to becoming a lead organizer with the University City Townhomes Resident Coalition.  It was her entire family’s interaction with the criminal justice system that inspired her to become a voice for the voiceless black families trapped within the criminal justice system. 
This inspired her to partner with other organizations like Save the Chinatown Coalition, DuBois Abolition School, Philadelphia Black Lives Matter, Medical centers, hospitals and universities to form some type of security and safety net for Philadelphia communities. As a single mother activist witnessing violence in communities, it has inspired her to begin to create a summer camp for African American youth so they can begin to dream and reimagine their space. 2023/2024 Delegation.

Efia Nwangaza, a South Carolina based civil/human rights attorney and historian, Founding Director
of the Malcolm X Center for Self-Determination and WMXP-LP Community Radio. She is a veteran of the 1960’s Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC/Atlanta Project), a co-founder of the National Malcolm X Grassroots Movement (MXG), National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America (commonly known as N’COBRA, Black Is Back Coalition for Peace and Reparations (BIBC).
At the UN, she served as the chair of the U.S. Human Rights Network (USHRN-PP/SR) Political
Prisoner/State Repression Working Group and the National Jericho Mvmt to Free All US Political
Prisoners, succeeding Mama Safiya Bukhari. Ms. Nwangaza is a founding member of the Black
Alliance for Peace (BAP), member of the Imam Jamil Al-Amin Network, and the Black Belt Human
Rights Coalition. She is a veteran of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)
successful Special Committee to Elect Julian Bond turned historic Atlanta “April, 1966 Black Power
Position Paper” Project, and a proud daughter of Garveyites. 2023/2024/2025 Delegation.

Dr. Avon Hart-Johnson is a researcher, author, and advocate. She serves as the
president and co-founder of DC Project Connect (DCPC. Dr. Hart-Johnson is the
chairperson of the Advocacy in Action Coalition, vice president on the board of directors
for the International Coalition for Children with Incarcerated Parents and is the
chairperson of the Fairview Residential Reentry Center Community Relations Board of
Directors. Her extensive research, conducted in both the United States and the United
Kingdom, presents a compelling argument for how carceral systems adversely affect
families and children. This research has gained recognition in scholarly publications,
research journals, and textbooks. 2023/2024 Delegation.

In 2015 Simone Harris created the Harris Foundation, which was Inspired by the excessive sentencing of her son, Rashie Harris, who was given a Life plus 527 Years Sentence under the Habitual Offender Law (three strike law), for a non-life taking crime.  The Harris Foundation has advocated to abolish the three-strike law, educate and reform our youth, and assist with inmate transitioning support.  She also serves as the CEO for DECIDE an organization created to assure the State of Delaware fairly addresses the long-standing constitutional violations within the criminal justice system. Her radio show, Simone Loves Reality Radio, focuses on criminal justice reform, provides a voice for the voice less – behind prison walls an outlet to share their stories.  Her first children’s book, “A Mother’s Love”, her first produced song “Baby Boy” and “Sorry” were all inspired by the traumatic experience of her sons excessive sentencing.  She is an entrepreneur, and holds an Associate Degree in Health Information, a bachelor’s in psychology and a master’s in education. 2023/2024 Delegation.

Dr. Tasseli McKay is a research fellow in the Department of Sociology at Duke University. Her most recent book, Stolen Wealth, Hidden Power: The Case for Reparations for Mass Incarceration, rigorously tabulates the harms of mass incarceration—many of which have been absorbed by women and kept out of sight by their invisible labor—to argue for massive reparations to Black communities. Dr. McKay also worked for ten years on the Multi-site Family Study on Incarceration, Parenting, and Partnering (the largest ever longitudinal study of families affected by incarceration), which resulted in her first book, Holding On: Fatherhood and Family During and After Incarceration (with Comfort, Lindquist, and Bir). She holds a doctorate in social policy from the London School of Economics. 2023/2024/2025 Delegation.

Dr. Dianne M. Stewart is the Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor of Religion and African
American Studies at Emory University. She specializes in African-heritage religious cultures
of the Caribbean and Americas, as well as womanist religious thought. Her research has
been supported by prestigious programs such as the Fulbright Scholar Program and the
American Academy of Religion. She is the author of Black Women, Black Love: America’s War on African American Marriage. 2024/2025 Delegation.

Dr. Kwame-Osagyefo Kalimara is an influential figure in education and activism. He is a founding
member of the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, an organization committed to the
empowerment and liberation of Black communities. His academic career spans several
prestigious institutions where he has taught law, psychology, and history, including the
University of Detroit, Wayne State University, and historically Black colleges such as
Morehouse and Spelman. 2024/2025 Delegation.

Dr. Andrea E. Thomas is a community-driven leader and systems thinker with 20 years of experience driving cross-sector collaboration, building trust-based partnerships, and leading global initiatives that drive measurable impact. Deep expertise in technology policy data protection, AI governance, multilateral diplomacy, and navigating complex systems across academia, public, private, and nonprofit sectors. Proven success in developing strategy and aligning organizations around shared goals. Experienced leader and trusted advisor with a track record of fostering inclusive collaboration across the Middle East, Sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, Eastern Europe and Central Asia. Returned Peace Corps Volunteer, Fulbright Specialist, and UN Global Diplomacy Fellow.

Jennifer Siaw is a Master’s student in International and Development Studies with a specialization in Gender, Race, and Diversity at the Graduate Institute of Geneva, where she served as Co-Director of the Afrique Students Association (2025-2026). She holds a Bachelor’s degree in International and Diplomatic Sciences and previously worked with asylum seekers before pursuing her graduate studies. Originally trained in health sciences with aspirations of becoming a midwife or pediatrician, Jennifer redirected her focus toward political advocacy, seeking to address gender inequalities and systemic barriers through human rights frameworks.

Currently an Advocacy Intern at the United Nations Population Fund in Geneva, she works with UN human rights mechanisms to advance sexual and reproductive health and rights, abortion access, and maternal health. Jennifer brings communications expertise to her advocacy work, including social media management, digital storytelling, and strategic communications. As a second-generation immigrant of Ghanaian origin who grew up in Italy, she is fluent in Italian, English, French, and Ga, and is deeply committed to amplifying representation for diaspora communities and centering African endogenous knowledge systems, including the traditions of the Ga-Adangbe people of Ghana, in global conversations

Stéphanie Etienne, CNM, MPH is a midwife, herbalist and filmmaker of Haitian descent. She has been a birthworker and reproductive justice advocate since 2006. Her work is guided by herbelief in pregnancy and birth as transformative and revolutionary spaces. She is a co-founder of the Bloom Collective, a perinatal wellness and maternal health advocacy space in Baltimore, MD. Stéphanie also works with several organizations dedicated to reducing maternal and infant mortality in the African Diaspora including the National Association to Advance Black Birth (NAABB) and Foundation for Advancement of Haitian Midwives (FAHM). Stéphanie is also the co-director of Listen to Me, a documentary exploring Black women’s journeys to motherhood. Stephanie is based in Baltimore and London, UK.

KARIBUNI Village is an Afro-Cuban community of one hundred and twenty peoples; women, men and children living under extreme generational historical systemic country embargo and sanctions since 1962.

“The US embargo has had a severe impact on the Cuban economy, limiting access to international markets, foreign investment, and essential goods. According to a 2018 report by the Cuban government, the embargo has cost the island nation $933.678 billion over six decades (adjusted for inflation).

Enforcement and recent strengthening of U.S. sanctions deepen hardships for Cuban population: Special Rapporteur | OHCHR

Tomiko Shine is a Cultural Anthropologist with a focus on systemic/institutional identities, culture of racism, generational trauma, and healing paradigms/models. Her ethnographic research over the last ten years on containment, confinement, and imprisonment of people of African descent within an American context eventually led her to the field as the Founding Director of APP-HRC. APP-HRC (Aging People in Prison-Human Rights Campaign) advocates and mitigates for the release of aging men and women incarcerated anywhere from 30, 40, 50, 60 or more years in prisons across the North America.

In 2023 she created SOLITUDE an international research consortium to review and research past colonial worlds, narratives, policies and laws still in operation that keep Afro descendent women and families lock into incarcerated futures. SOLITUDE works to provide methodology, resources, access and healing ecosystems across the Diaspora that unlock the future while providing on the ground collaboration of restoring community.